Canadian/U.S words & pronounciations

[Krikit 1,163]

Way to kill a thread, Udella!

So I was at the store looking for something to stop the leak in my outside tap yesterday. The guy says "Can I help you?" So I hold up the package of O-rings and say "Will this stop the leak in my tap?" He looks confused. Oh. I must have used the wrong word. So then I try "faucett". He looks around with a "help me" look on his face. So I explain it's the thing which comes out of the outside wall that you attach the hose to. Turns out it's a spigott.

[pocheros 101]

I find it odd that everyone says Americans say prah-cess and Canadians pro-cess, because it's the other way around with me and my fiance It was one of the first things he noticed when we started talking on the phone. But Canada & the States are such big countries that pronunciation must vary widely throughout the regions.

Also, I will never get used to calling a highway a freeway. It sounds so wrong! Or the washroom a restroom.

Edited June 29, 2011 by pocheros

[Pauley 2]

My wife generally likes to mock the whole pronunciation thing by referring to the E-ZPass module on my windshield as an "E-Zed-Pass".

(Oh, hey, did ya miss me?)

Also, I will never get used to calling a highway a freeway. It sounds so wrong! Or the washroom a restroom.

I still think it's an "expressway."

[Krikit 1,163]

Pauley!!!!

[Udella&Wiz 325]

My wife generally likes to mock the whole pronunciation thing by referring to the E-ZPass module on my windshield as an "E-Zed-Pass".

(Oh, hey, did ya miss me?)

I still think it's an "expressway."

E-ZED Pass....hahahahahahahahaha! I'm so using that.

[Krikit 1,163]

Me too.

[Leafgal 3]

Here in North Carolina a toque is called a tobaggan. Cracks me up every time.

OMG when my husband called it a tobaggan the first time I thought he was just messing with me, I'm like what you put a sled on your head lol.

The "zed" thing still cracks me up.

When I hear "zed" I think of the boss in Men in Black, whose codename by the way, probably didn't ring a bell with American audiences. In MIB, every agent's codename was a letter (Tommy Lee Jones was "Agent K" for instance) but then we ran across the guy in-charge and his codename was "zed." Most Americans I've run into just thought he had a codename that sounded different because he was the boss. It most likely didn't occur to them (or they just didn't know) that "zed" is how most of the English-speaking world refers to what we in the U.S. call "zee."

I remember having to spell something to someone on the phone and I said Zed and he didn't understand and I was like oh yeah Zee, shaking my head.

Pop vs soda is a regional thing. I live in the midwest and here it is pop. Because of the accent here, this is the one region that really really should use soda. Not only because, well, it is soda, but with a strong midwest accent, "pop" sounds more like "pap." Eeeeeuwww!!!!

I find this is regional, as I know lots of Northern Americans and they say pop, but here in the south sometimes you get waitresses not understanding the term lol.

OH and how about I know several American people who call it a bedroom suit and I call it a bedroom suite.

[Krikit 1,163]

OH and how about I know several American people who call it a bedroom suit and I call it a bedroom suite.

Isn't that like a birthday suit? lol

[Pauley 2]

I remember having to spell something to someone on the phone and I said Zed and he didn't understand and I was like oh yeah Zee, shaking my head.

I remember a very British-sounding play-by-play guy saying "zed" during an American broadcast of a World Cup soccer game last summer, and his American color commentator ribbing him for it. "Zed? What's that? Did you mean 'Zee'?"

[LuvIllinois 1]

My hubby laughs at how I say Dollar..he says it sounds like Dough-ler (like someone mentioned earlier in this thread about Donna sounding like Dough-Na)

I laugh at how much his O's sound like A's! And he has a Chicago accent to boot.

I remember the first time he came to visit and I was at work. He had to call me to get directions to where I was going and he couldn't understand the name of the street I was mentioning. He wanted me to spell it and it had a zed in it. He said " A wHat??!/?" LOL I said it a few times before it clicked and I had to say ZEE!

[Lami 0]

My darling southern husband makes me repeat anything that has an O sound in it. Out is his personal favoUrite. I thought that he was losing his hearing for a little while. Sometimes I repeat myself just because he seems to enjoy it so much.

I get a kick out of him cutting the lights on or off. He and his daughter waste an awful lot of their energy trying to reform my pronunciation. I spend an awful lot of my time telling them that just because I'm here doesn't mean I'm willing to butcher the English language along with them ;P

I no longer tell them we're having pasta for dinner, I just tell them it's spaghetti and avoid the snickering over that.

When he agrees with something I've said he says "I tell you what" First time he said that I waited a minute and then said "what??" He's also "fine as a frogs hair" To which I had to ask "frogs have hair? Apparently it means that you're "really fine"

[cananner 2]

I'm from Montreal and have never heard 'aboot', but my friend's stepdad is from Alberta and mine is from Peterborough Ontario and they both say 'aboat', which I think is the closest you'll ever get to 'aboot'.

Another thing is how Americans pronounce the names of Canadian cities very deliberately. Where I say 'Mun-tree-all' and 'Ch'ronno/T'ronno', they say 'MAWN-tree-all' and 'Toe-ron-to'.

Food-wise, the Smarties thing is always confusing, because they DO have Smarties, which are these http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Z9noN9a-Bdo/S04JmkBDxgI/AAAAAAAAFM0/10KGVIhNpog/s400/smarties-1.jpg, which is the exact same packaging as Rockets for us http://images2.makefive.com/images/experiences/life/top-5-halloween-candy-you-get-when-trick-or-treating/rockets-7.gif I've told a US friend I was having a Smartie McFlurry and he was totally grossed out until I explained to him what OUR Smarties are

[warlord 72]

I give up with all pronunciations, I get called out on my American pronunciation when in Canada and here they call it out as a Canadian pronunciation of the same words. So now I just tell people it's a hybrid of American, Australian and Canadian mix which creates my very own dialect.

Like Mazda, I say maazduh not like the US Muhzduh and not the Canadian (however they say it). Same with something like Nirvana (I say Nirvaana) not Nirvahnuh.

And speaking of the z thing, I always made fun of my friends in Canada for that since when you say the alphabet and end it with a zed it sounds so stupid and doesn't flow one bit. So I would call things like Zebra (Zedbra) or Zoo a Zedoo. They always roll their eyes at me and laugh when i do that, and then sometimes they'll start calling things with the zed instead of the zee pronounciation way just to say "hey look we say Zedbra not Zeebra".

Of course I grew up with Sesame Street before the Canadian broadcast company hijacked the programming and substituted Canadian content into it. So I grew up in Canada always saying "Zee". Most my friends did too, until the whole need to use the British way for everything took over and most of them converted as they got older to force themselves to use Zed until it became natural to them...

Edited June 30, 2011 by warlord

[SomberCat 0]

I have been fascinated with this topic ever since my husband and I first met years ago (I am the USC). There are millions of differences, but we have found that most of them are regional things. Just because I say a word a certain way in Indiana doesn't mean that another USC would say it that way in Florida. The same holds true with my husband who spent the first 20 years of his life in Nova Scotia, but the next 20 years in Ontario. He jokes that he can speak three languages now - all different varieties of English.

While I was poking around online last night, I found this language survey that appears to have been done by a group at Harvard. It's strictly a US survey, but I found it really interesting to see the areas of the country that pronounce words a certain way, use different words or phrases, etc. I also found several pronunciations that I would previously have deemed Canadian and found that they are heavily used in areas of the US outside of my area (particularly the East Coast). Pretty cool. If you're bored, take a look at it. You'll get a good chuckle out of a few of them.

http://www4.uwm.edu/...alect/maps.html

[edsotherhalf 1]

I still laugh at my husband when he uses phrases or words like : Filling station - I say gas station, I say going for groceries, he goes to the grocery store, I asked a clerk once where the washroom was, she look stunned and looked at my husband for clarification, he said the restroom or bathroom, she said she was going to direct me to the laundromat down the street, he says IN-surance, I say insurance, he says garaaage, I say garAge. My son in law says he can listen to me talk for hours, he loves the accent. I have to say tho I was raised in Alberta, lived 13 yrs in Ontario and was married to a Newfoundlander so I have a language all my own. LOL