I was just going aboot Canada, very beautiful ay!

[Szech]

I drove up to Seattle last Friday to see my Sister, and we went camping a bit East of Vancouver yesterday. Very beautiful area with lots of trees and undergrowth. Can't get used to that accent though. What is it? A mix of French and English?

Go oot the gates and aboot where you see the pub there'll be a market on the left.

I'll post some pics of Golden ears when I get back home. Wonderful place it is http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif.

[muno]

I like canadiens =) I think you speak it as funnily as everyone else - thou american english sounds better than british.
-M

[krusty the klown]

Oh I say!

[krusty the klown]

Did you see anyone with beady little eyes and flapping heads???

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/biggrin.gif

[Andy_L]

We trained with some canadians while i was stationed at Ft Lewis, great guys, mostly. Sad to say the training base we were at is closed :-(

[skuz]

Szech, if you want a good laugh about this accent, come to the other end of Canada, the wonderful Quebec province (ahem...). Here, everyone speaks French and most CAN speak English. Since we don't practice our oral English often, I think we sound real weird.

[fshanda]

Quebec is a beautiful city. I visited there 15 years ago on a road trip thru canada. Stoped in Toronto and was told to skip thru Montreal if I didn't speak French. A few people told me that they speak English and French there but prefer French. I don't speak French so I was told they would greet us with poor attitudes and that we would be better off just going to Quebec. We arrived in Quebec a week before the winter festival (poor planning) but still had a great time. I never met anyone that spoke English but was happy that every one I met was very pleasant. No mater where I went, to restaurants or local stores, everyone was more than willing to help me out despite my difficulty understanding French. I would love to visit Quebec again.

Fshanda

[sharder8]

It's beautiful in the central part of Canada as well! Southeast Manitoba and southwest Ontario are the area's I'm (and Caddmann) are more familiar with. Place's like Kenora, Steinbach, Falcon Lake, Winnipeg, etc.

Many of the small towns are very ethnic and you'll find English as a second language when shopping in them. Steinbach, Winkler, Altona, and Gretna are predominately German-Russian Mennonite and Low German is spoken quite a bit in the store's. (Since that is my heritage, I'm most familiar with these towns.) I've also been in towns where they're speaking Polish, Ukrainian, French, and other languages in the stores.

Harder

[sharder8]

Hey Caddmann --

Ya mean ya never fished in Falcon Lake? Great fishing just NE of Kenora, just take the lake drive (LOW that is).

Winnipeg was mainly Ukrainian, now it's a good mix of everything.

Harder

[sharder8]

True Caddmann, True!

But the Muskie fishing on LOW and Sturgeon fishing on the banks of the Rainy can't be beat!

Scott Marvin is running a guide service out of Warroad now and covering a large portion of Manitoba and Ontario. (I'm sure you remember hearing the Marvin name!)

Harder

P.S. Just found out I'm working with Ann Skipseth (sp) husband. Wasn't she a classmate of yours?

[justy]

Allegedly, the best spoke English, is in a place just outside Dublin, Ireland.

Go figure???

All the best, Justy.

[sharder8]

LOL!!

Wait a minute, what am I laughing about? You're probably right! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif

[justy]

Hehe, I think its true!

All the best, Justy.

[brandon184]

Szech... Aboot? http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif I'd like to meet those people... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

I used to live in Saskatchewan, Canada... Flat as a prairie, boring to the unknowing. Find any valley town that has a lake (common) and you're set the *entire* time you're there, entertainment-wise.

Canadian food is also a lot "fuller" and more wholesome, IMO.

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

- Brandon

[Sixpac]

Accent Eh?! Aboot... lol...

Thats too much. Yee Ahl!

Way too much.

I don't know but I've been living in BC (British Columbia) not Mexico like alot of Californians think. WTF

Anyways, nice place, decent weather. Crappy wages. Free healthcare (if you don't have a job otherwise you pay).

"Make mine a Social-crat. Welcome to Canada.

Here is your Molson Canadian.

Come again."

Or in the words of T & F

"What garbage"... "What do you expect? They're Canadian"

Sixpac>>>>

[This message has been edited by Sixpac (edited 06-22-2001).]

[Szech]

Whew! It was an 18 hour trip, but I'm back in LA where the traffic is bad and the air is worse!

Did you see anyone with beady little eyes and flapping heads???

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/biggrin.gif You funny, funny guy Krusty http://www.sysopt.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Skuz, I would seriously love to take a trip all around Canada. Probably won't have time until Winter break, maybe. Say... people in Quebec wouldn't make fun of the way I speak the same way I make fun of them, would they? http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

Go on, say it! Say aboot!
... about? ...
HAHAHAHAHA...

Brandon, what is Canadian food like? I ate at some Bar & Grill outside of Vancouver, and it seemed pretty much like American food. The hostess brought out the microscope on my driver's license too. Do I really look 17-???

Oh, and back to the whole aboot thing. Ou in French is pronounced oo, right? Like in vou and oui? So I'm thinking the French influence started it all. What do you think aboot this ay? http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[brandon184]

Well, maybe it's just me. You wouldn't notice it at all, probably - unless you've eaten a lot of both.

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Sixpac]

Whats CDN food like... its North America! Gessh its not the middle of India here.

(btw not to dis India but its a real hard living there. And yes I've been there)

Its the same old burgers and fries like everywhere else in the rest of N.A.

Although I can't find anyone to make a good Philly Cheese Stake around here.

Mmmmm, that would be good.

Sixpac>>>>

[Sixpac]

AND this whole Friggin think about ABOOT or what ever you guys are saying is not TRUE... I've lived in all parts of Western Canada and nobody says ABOOT.

Don't know where you get your info from but its time to look outside the AMERICAN BOX.

YEEE AHHHHLLLLLLLLLL

Sixpac>>>>

[big_block_buick]

ok, one by one...

i've never heard aboot either..

it's pronounced "eh" not ay as in "ay billie have you ever been to sea"..lol

food i dont know...it's probably the same..

caddmannq you remember correct on the red devil, still one of the best spoons to use..i have one with a canadian flag though http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
five of diamonds in black and red are both excellent as well.. but it seems those pike will go for anything that moves up here lol

lastly what am i missing with the beaty little eyes and flapping heads...maybe i'm slow but i dont get that one..anyhow it's all in good fun.

[Spanky]

Yep I'm living in ontario and have never heard aboot either.

The eye and flaping heads thing comes from south park. Not sure what thats all about either.

[Spanky]

Yep I'm living in ontario and have never heard aboot either.

The eye and flaping heads thing comes from south park. Not sure what thats all about either.

[doggabone]

From http://www.yorku.ca/twainweb/troberts/raising.html

(snip)

Canadian raising is a phonological process characteristic of several varieties of Canadian English, in which the onsets of the diphthongs /ay/ and /aw/ raise to mid vowels when they precede voiceless obstruents (the sounds /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, and /f/).

To American ears, the Canadian pronunciation of about often sounds like aboot, but this is only an illusion.

Because the more familiar pronunciation of /aw/ is articulated with the tongue in a low position, and because it raises to a mid position in Canadian English when the vowel precedes the voiceless obstruents listed above, speakers of other varieties of English will immediately detect the vowel raising, but will sometimes think that the vowel has raised farther than it actually does, all the way to /u/, which is a high vowel--hence the mishearing (and not-quite-right imitation) of this pronunciation as aboot.

(/snip)

Found THAT link on http://home.earthlink.net/~cocola/canadianeh.html

Never heard the word "aboot" until I was in a band with a couple of folx whose parent grew up on "The Rock" (Newfoundland), who tried in vain to teach me the Newfie accent, all the while threatening "Lard hah Tundra'n Cheeziz b'y, ef ya don' t'ing da t'ing as I dern da t'ing, I well splitcher **** wit' a gunnel, eh wa?"

I believe that accent was the child of screaming into the ocean winds http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif. And the rest of us talk the way we do because for up to 5 months out of the year our cheeks are too stiffly frozen to move when we speak. It would be interesting to compare the percieved phonetics as muffled in speach and subsequent hearing through parkas http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif.

[Szech]

MMMmmmm... very interesting. Sorry to my neighbors to the north, it's these American ears http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif. Thanks for the info doggabone.

[big_block_buick]

very interesting stuff doggabone,yeah i wonder how we sound in -30c lol, and i see your in guelph...my mothers side of the family all live there...she was born in mt.forest, and my grandmother has a summer retreat at sauble beach, in winter she's in florida...