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Well, as a resident of Wisconsin, I can easily tell Canadians from non-. I can also tell a Yooper from a Central Wisconsinite from a Milwaukee resident from a Minnesotan and on down the line. It's just like in the South where people acclimated can pull out the subtleties from state-to-state that most northerners cannot.
Wait, Kearsarge is waaaaaay up there. Just down the road from Copper Harbor, one of the most remote spots in America (it's further from an interstate than any other city in the Lower 48, including anywhere in Montana or Maine or New Mexico or wherever). Beautiful in the Keweenaw, but a world apart!
On the surface, not really. Most Anglo Canadians don't talk very differently from most Americans although there are some slight differences. If I heard them say words like "about", "process", or "against", that would be a dead giveaway though.
I did a cruise not too long ago and there were a lot of Canadians on board. They were easy to spot. They were all wearing tee shirts that had "I am Canadian" across the front. Plus you could hear them, very noisy.
That is a classic Canadian trait. The whole "we are not Americans heaven forbid", we are just so much better. Blech. Who cares.
Usually. There's a very big difference between accents in Ontario and over the border in New York State for example. Incidentally if you compared the speech of someone from Buffalo, someone from Toronto and someone from San Francisco, the Buffalonian would stand out most IMO.
However there are some very distinctive rural Ontario accents, both the northern and central "hoser" accent and also the Ottawa Valley accent.
Last edited by King of Kensington; 08-29-2014 at 09:29 PM..
speaking of Yoopers, this accent on the guy at 45 seconds (and the other interviewee) is mindblowing. I didn't know people actually talked like that in America. I would definitely think he is a Canadian.
I've been in all 50 states. I've also visited 7 provinces (AB, BC, ON, NB, NS, PE, QU) and if 6 hours counts as a visit, I've also set foot in the Yukon. In my experience, I have seen little difference between Americans and Canadians when inter-acting casually. My work took me to Canada a couple of times, and that is where I saw a somewhat more noticeable difference. Canadians, in my view, tend to be a little bit more reserved than us Americans. They are not so quick to jump into a conversation and are more inclined towards conflict avoidance. I realize we are talking generalities here. If we flip this around to a Canadian perspective, rather than calling themselves "reserved," I would imagine they might see themselves as more polite than Americans.
It's always good to examine both sides of the coin when considering inter-personal dynamics and generalities.
I've found that most Americans have no idea what Canadians really sound like.
In reality, most Anglophone Canadians from Toronto on west sound like Californians, with a few giveaway Canadianisms like "agaynst" (against), "passed-uh" (pasta), "sore-ree" (sorry), and proe-cess (process).
The stereotypical Canadian accents that Americans supposedly think is real is actually what stereotypical Upper Midwesterners sound like.
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