When I went to Australia people used to make fun of me for it. After being there a while I lost it. Then when I came back home (to Ontario) I heard it everywhere. It’s more pronounced when you’re from “doan east” but it exists across Canada to different extents.
Ah-HA. You know, I completely ignored the checkbox for “Show your signature.” I always thought the “Show signatures” option in your user options was sufficient - at least, this is how it is on the other boards I’ve been a member of, so I wasn’t expecting this.
Look!
Siggy goodness!
Maybe I haven’t heard enough from across the country, but the “newfie” accent (what is typically mistaken for the generic Canadian accent) is something I very rarely encounter here in Ontario – and those that I do encounter are invariably from the maritimes. The accent seems to differ significantly between Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and P.E.I., but collectively the accents are still different from those I hear in Ontario or anywhere west of here. I have occasion to deal with folk across Canada in working at a company’s head office who has dealings with other companies around the country, and I can always tell a maritimer from a westerner. 
Yep. Like I said, it’s a lot more pronounced in the Maritimes, but it does exist elsewhere. I’ve heard it quite pronounced from Albertans, even, though maybe not from Vancouverians. You probably won’t be able to hear it in other people with the exact same accent until you catch yourself doing it.
Ditto. Now I can’t NOT see it.
Oh crumbs, I seem to have inadvertantly caused some debate. 
I certainly wasn’t meaning to suggest that all Canadians said “aboot” (or “aboat” or whatever). It’s entirely possible that the person I heard on the news (who, for the record, was a senior police officer in Ontario) didn’t, in fact, use the pronunciation that you think of when I write “aboot” – but whatever it was, it certainly was distinctive, and it allowed me to tune my ear in to the other features of his accent that marked it out as specifically Canadian, rather than the vague “some sort of North American accent” that my brain would have registered it as before.
A couple of examples:
Last week, a friend lent me the DVD of the movie “Crash”, which I hadn’t seen. The movie is preceded by a short introduction by the director, Paul Haggis, about whom I knew absolutely nothing. As soon as I heard him speak, though, I immediately thought “Oh, he’s Canadian”.
Just last night, I re-watched the film “Outbreak” featuring Donald Sutherland. Now, I’ve been familiar with Donald Sutherland for decades, and I knew he was Canadian, but I’d never been able to tell whether he had a recognisably Canadian accent or if that was just his distinctive voice. Last night I could tell that he did, indeed, have a Canadian accent.
I’m still a long way, of course, from being able to differentiate one Canadian accent from another, but I can at least seemingly tell they’re not from the USA.
I guess I don’t really hear it, being an Ontario-born Canadian who’s lived here all his life. I can certainly differentiate different American dialects – North-Eastern (New York/Jersey, Boston, Minnesota), southern dialects (Texas et al.) and so on. (I don’t count periodic/vocationally stereotypical modes of speech like the old Californian “valley girl” or “surfer dude.”) In Canada the most distinct ones for me would of course be the maritimer (or “newfie” as most Canadians, or at least Ontarians tend to call it) accent and Quebecois (French). In between those though, outside their localized regions, is what I’d consider just your average North American accent which to me sounds fairly homogenous. I’m sure there are various blends of accends from transplants who spent time in two or more regions where they picked up/lost most of their present accent but it’s usually identifiable as having shades of one regional accent or another. Of course, I may just be unable to pick up the much more subtle differences that can peg one person as from this or that state/province that doesn’t have a pronounced accent.
Some Canadians say “aboat” too. I met a bloke from Vancouver who liked to talk about going “oat and aboat tree plantin’ eh”.
(After five hours of his monologue about tree plantin’ where you get your dog and you get your motor home and you go oat into the woods and you plant those trees and you are just oat there in the wilderness with your dog and nobody else aboat I wanted to hit him. Doesn’t reflect on the entire nation of Canadia, though.)
It’s spelled David Mirkin- and he’s no longer the show’s executive producer, Al Jean is. (Whether Mirkin still works on the show, I know not.)
Doh! That’s what I get for only half paying attention to it whilst I was sufing the dope.
But still. It’s pronounced like merkin. So it’s still kinda funny. Right?
Right?
I’m another one who’s noticed the difference between this and other boards. I’ve also noticed that my brother commits the terrible sin of putting ketchup on his hot dogs.
And of course I’ve noticed just how much I don’t know.
In addition to what was already listed, I’ve noticed that people on other boards just don’t bother reading every post carefully–or even reading every post, for that matter. One person will answer the OP’s question, and the OP will come back to whine impatiently that the question hasn’t been answered. The responder, bless his/her soul, is usually fairly patient with the OP, whereas here there would most likely be some eye-rolling and some chastisement for not paying attention.
That’s another thing–posters here definitely won’t hold your hand and mollycoddle you. Sometimes I consider it a positive thing, because we’re all treating each other like the sane, intelligent, capable adults we are; however, sometimes posters are too blunt and I feel like I’m too thin-skinned for this place.
I always notice usernames appearing in real life, like the ShibbOleth example above.
It warmed my heart to read this. I must get the blog back up.
I don’t remember the doper, but there was someone who took pictures of abandoned gloves. Until that point I had never realized how many lost gloves I saw in a week. It made me want to get a camera and submit some pics.
Note to self: read entire thread before posting. :smack:
I’ll second the comments about spelling and grammar. I never noticed how good it was here until I started reading other boards where the typical post looks like the author is twelve.
People don’t even seem to try. I’m starting to see,more and more, posts like this,Mulitple commas separating the words,I think I’ll start posting like that here,you all will still take my opinions seriously,right?
I hate the commas between words. As I said before, I read and post on another board where posters capitalize Every Word Of Their Post. I Don’t Know What They Think This Accomplishes, But It’s Insanely Annoying. OR IN ALL CAPS. I read these posts as if the poster is shouting.
I won’t even go into the whole array of it’s/its and do/due and their/there/they’re mistakes that are liberally sprinkled throughout nearly every post.
Makes my head hurt.
Don’t be too sure.
I grew up in “Tidewater” Virginia, from Irish-Gaelic stock. When I moved to Ohio in the 1970’s, I can’t tell you how many people asked if I was Canadian. I say “hoose” “aboot” and other such things, although my accent has faded over the years.
Wait, you’re grouping Boston with Minnesota? Because those accents sound so similar!
The aboot thing…my friend Laur…uh, Helen’s Eidolon commented awhile ago that she’d never even really noticed it until she returned home to Montreal after a school year in Pennsylvania. I’ve seen so many Canadians on the SDMB insist they don’t say “aboot” and I don’t care what you want to call that sound or how you want to write it, but there is a definite difference between the way most Americans and most Canadians say that sound.
BTW, I heard an actual Newfie accent awhile back (my NPR station back in Chicago carries a CBC news program and they interviewed some people in St. John…or St. John’s. Whichever’s the one in Newfoundland) and I have never heard anyone talk like that before. Those people crazy. No one thinks all Canadians sound like Newfoundlanders.
Hmm. The Dope has taught me that there is a place called Cold Stone Creamery and it is, apparently, very good. 'Cept you shouldn’t get a large size. 'Coz then you’re a fatty. 