My friend from the midlands of Ireland lived in Toronto for a year. Everyone he met there thought he was from Newfoundland.
I thought it was pretty funny when I was flipping through the channels and I found a CFL game. The announcers were speaking in what I would consider American TV Announcer English. Except when the occasional “about” happened. Then it seemed they exagerated it into aBOOT. Moreso than I have heard from Canadians I’ve met. Seemed like they were saying “This is Canadian football dammit.”
My first trip to Asia, I’m in a bar in Singapore being pestered by a drunken Kiwi, he wants to know why all us Canadians talk like Yanks?
I responded, “For the same reason all you Kiwi’s talk like Aussies!”
He was so offended he refused to speak to me again. (Good on me, mate!)
I thought it was a good analogy, but I guess he couldn’t see it.
When traveling in Asia I was always asked if I was a Canadian, which I though was a little odd, at first, thinking their first guess would be American, quite honestly. Then it was explained to me that an American is not nearly as offended at being confused with a Canadian as a Canadian is who’s asked if they are an American!
I live about two hours from Detroit and am a big Tiger’s fan. On one of my trips I took my favorite Detroit Tigers tee shirt with me and wore it, lots, everywhere I went. I was so unaware, it was months before it occurred to me that people, no doubt thought I was an American. It hadn’t even crossed my mind, to be honest.
It’s more like “abaowt”, but there are variances to be heard across Canada. Obviously there’s Newfoundland English, which is almost another language unto itself, but Nova Scotia has its own set of sounds, with the most notable one being a drawn out “a”. “Went to the baaar in my caaar”, as it were. That’s also there to some extent rural Ontario, which was also heavily settled by Scots.