'It looks to me, based on these data, that Canadians feel that their relationship with the United States has changed in a fundamental way,' said an Ipsos leader.
I never understood this stereotype (aboot vs about). I’m Canadian, lived here all my life, my family is all Canadian and all have lived here all their lives. I’ve got family all across the country, from the western coast of BC to the eastern coast of Newfoundland, from the northern stretches of Nunavut to the most southern tip of Ontario, and very rarely have I ever heard it pronounced that way. It’s actually really funny as a Canadian to look up “how to speak like a Canadian” and watch how awful most of the “tips” are. I’d recommend it.
A lot of people in the us will misinterpret a rural Ontario accent as Californian because way back in the day a bunch of people from Ontario moved to California and apparently the accent kind of caught on.
It’s exaggerated. I’m from Newfoundland and have little to no regional accent, but still have very slight grammatical and phonetic tells that are apparently obvious to people from elsewhere.
I use more long “O” sounds than people in the US which is apparently obvious almost immediately, and I have some odd grammar switch apparently singles me out as from NL very quickly to anyone in Canada.
Also, apparently the way I say “thirteen” has a stronger hint of Newfoundland in it than the rest of my speech, at least according to one of my co-workers from Ontario.
It’s quite possible that having such a wide ranging family same social circle has simple acclimated you to the various regional differences in dialect.
I think “oot” emphasises the difference from US accents for parody reasons, and also it’s just not that simple to describe that difference by substituting a single letter of the alphabet. The best way I can think of to describe it (based on experience with friends from BC) is like a combination of “oht” and “oat”
I’m in the US and I have to support this analysis. I dated someone from Canada when I was younger, and at first he expressed the same thought as the poster above - he didn’t hear the difference, so he didn’t get it.
Until he came to visit me in the states. The difference between how his dad and my dad talked was so apparent, the stereotype just “clicked.” To say “aboot” is definitely an exaggeration, but in all fairness, it’s really hard to repeat a sound that isn’t in your native dialect. There is no US-English equivalent for the “ou” sound in Canadian English “about.”
It’s like when a Japanese speaker uses a Z sound instead of English TH - it’s not because Z is exactly what they hear when an English person says TH, but because the TH sound doesn’t exist in Japanese at all. In both cases (and so many more across the world), speakers substitute non-standard sounds with ones they already know.
I never understood this stereotype (aboot vs about). I’m Canadian, lived here all my life, my family is all Canadian and all have lived here all their lives. I’ve got family all across the country, from the western coast of BC to the eastern coast of Newfoundland, from the northern stretches of Nunavut to the most southern tip of Ontario, and very rarely have I ever heard it pronounced that way. It’s actually really funny as a Canadian to look up “how to speak like a Canadian” and watch how awful most of the “tips” are. I’d recommend it.
its more like “a-boat”. I’ve never even been to Canada, but I can often spot a Canadian on TV within moments based on how they speak.
A lot of people in the us will misinterpret a rural Ontario accent as Californian because way back in the day a bunch of people from Ontario moved to California and apparently the accent kind of caught on.
There’s a town called Ontario in California even.
A boawt
It’s exaggerated. I’m from Newfoundland and have little to no regional accent, but still have very slight grammatical and phonetic tells that are apparently obvious to people from elsewhere.
I use more long “O” sounds than people in the US which is apparently obvious almost immediately, and I have some odd grammar switch apparently singles me out as from NL very quickly to anyone in Canada.
Also, apparently the way I say “thirteen” has a stronger hint of Newfoundland in it than the rest of my speech, at least according to one of my co-workers from Ontario.
It’s quite possible that having such a wide ranging family same social circle has simple acclimated you to the various regional differences in dialect.
I watch a lot of Canadian Youtube, it’s totally a mix.
80% of the time it’s identical to US about
19% of the time it’s aboawt.
1% of the time it’s totally a-boot.
With a US English ear, it’s jarring. (not in a bad way) but we totally notice it.
Not eveyone does it. Linus from Linus tech tips drops one every few shows, but then Electro Boom never does. Bobsdecline does it a little less often.
It’s kind of like the US and Brittish people saying Idear instead of idea. it happens once in a while
I think “oot” emphasises the difference from US accents for parody reasons, and also it’s just not that simple to describe that difference by substituting a single letter of the alphabet. The best way I can think of to describe it (based on experience with friends from BC) is like a combination of “oht” and “oat”
I’m in the US and I have to support this analysis. I dated someone from Canada when I was younger, and at first he expressed the same thought as the poster above - he didn’t hear the difference, so he didn’t get it.
Until he came to visit me in the states. The difference between how his dad and my dad talked was so apparent, the stereotype just “clicked.” To say “aboot” is definitely an exaggeration, but in all fairness, it’s really hard to repeat a sound that isn’t in your native dialect. There is no US-English equivalent for the “ou” sound in Canadian English “about.”
It’s like when a Japanese speaker uses a Z sound instead of English TH - it’s not because Z is exactly what they hear when an English person says TH, but because the TH sound doesn’t exist in Japanese at all. In both cases (and so many more across the world), speakers substitute non-standard sounds with ones they already know.
Same, never heard ‘aboot’ in my life. However, I do tend to say ‘-eh’ all the time, especially at the end of sentences as emphasis.