Speech pattern and typographical variations across Canada

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

The posh French version sounds like lower class Australian - "no worries"

Sometimes you'll see "sans souci" used in English speaking North America to try to sound posh. There used to be a fancy French restaurant in Toronto with that name which I believe was located in the former Sutton Place hotel.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Loco101

Sometimes you'll see "sans souci" used in English speaking North America to try to sound posh. There used to be a fancy French restaurant in Toronto with that name which I believe was located in the former Sutton Place hotel.

Capitalized and used only as a proper name in English.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by someone123

In the US (usually Pacific Northwest or California) I most frequently hear "uh huh" or "yup", which I initially thought was kind of rude but is normal there.

Plus Americans tend to ask questions to strangers without any kind of introduction, and talk about oddly personal things.

"Uh huh" is the only Americanism I found odd in my ~13 years of living in the USA.

Approaching strangers is not uniquely American. I never found much difference from the Canadian Prairies, or Australia for that matter. Frigid attitudes towards strangers may be a Central Canada thing.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Capitalized and used only as a proper name in English.

There is a Sydney Australia suburb called Sans Souci.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Acajack

There is a Sydney Australia suburb called Sans Souci.

Should be called "Sans Souci Mate."

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Acajack

There is a Sydney Australia suburb called Sans Souci.

There is a tiny cottage community on Lake Winnipeg by the same name. I do believe that at one time there was a concentration of Francophone cottagers there, hence the name.

[CivicBlues]

The most famous Sans Souci place name being the Prussian King's Palace in Potsdam

[harls]

Originally Posted by Doug

"Uh huh" is the only Americanism I found odd in my ~13 years of living in the USA.

Most Americans I talk to on the phone close their conversations with "uh huh". It's weirdly jarring.

[kool maudit]

In Danish, 'you're welcome' is 'lige meget', which sounds more like 'lee mawl' (it's such a weirdly pronounced language).

It translates to something like 'it doesn't matter' in its meaning, but it literally means something more like 'equally much'.

[GlassCity]

I never liked "you're welcome" because it feels super formal, and to me has the air like you did someone a great big favour. I don't mind hearing it at all, but I definitely never say it. My own answers to "thank you" range from "for sure" as the most common, "no worries" (which I didn't realize was Australian until SSP), "no problem", and yep. Occasionally I'll toss in a "definitely" or "you bet."

As far as talking to strangers, based on people I know who have gone to university in Central Canada, my understanding was that people there were much more likely to engage than here in BC, where we're more reserved apparently.

[SignalHillHiker]

There's a new radio commercial for Carfax where the woman says she's needs her car fixed and the other replies you should get Carfax and missus keeps thinking she's saying "car fixed". "If you tells me to get my car fixed ONE MORE TIME..." I always have to change the station. It's that aggravating.

Anyhow, this one is close also. That's not what a scalawag is - it's just a rambunctious child or mischievous adult.

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[lio45]

Weird coincidence... I'm currently shopping for timber land in a reasonable radius of my hometown of Sherbrooke QC (on both sides of the border), and one property I have my eye on - at the limit of my radius - is in NY State, and upon reading a bit about the place out of curiosity, here's one of the first things I see:

Originally Posted by wikipedia, on the history of the village that's the county seat

History
The village was first settled in 1771. In 1787 Benajah Douglas, grandfather of 1860 presidential candidate Stephen A. Douglas, built the first tavern and hotel at Ballston Spa. It was located near the natural spring.[5]

In 1803 Ballston Spa's Sans Souci Hotel, at the time the largest hotel in the United States, was built by Nicholas Low. Presidents, senators and governors stayed there, as well as many wealthy private citizens.[6] Ballston Spa was incorporated as a village in 1807.

(bold obviously mine)

The hotel has its own wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans_S...(Ballston_Spa)

[SignalHillHiker]

Since jeddy1989 is fluent in Spanish, and through him I've met basically every Spanish-speaking person in St. John's, it's fascinating to me to hear the differences. Like... Colombian is Godly. A Colombian woman could turn me straight. Chilean is awful. Spain Spanish is the WORST OF ALL.

Also, it's cute how a few (not all) of the Spain Spanish singers who are popular on this side of the Atlantic have songs where they're like the "white guy"... with sexy Mexican girls dancing singing about how he can't dance, etc.

Anyhow, not English but this is the best example of Mexican nobility, that upper class crust of Mexico City in gated neighbourhoods. So different from most Spanish music, and Spain. Everything is choppy, th is z, etc. She's not actually that, she's not even from Mexico City (Monterrey), but she has the accent. It's a really nice version of Spanish, and probably the easiest for English people to sing along with.

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*****

And an example of the culture clash one. He's Spanish (as in from Spain), she's from Argentina (all her songs are fun, BTW, if you also like Spanish music - she's very good). The whole song is about how his waist can't keep up with the culture and he's tripping in the sand and he needs her to show him how to dance and live. lol

This song is also a good example of why Spain Spanish is the ugliest of them all. Corazon (heart) is Cora-THon there. Once you notice it, you can't stop hearing it in any Spanish song, in any word. Ruins it lol So please, keep on saying Bar-SELL-ona and E-Beet-saw. They're perfectly acceptable in most Spanish accents. You don't NEED to say Bar-THEL-ona and E-BEETHA.

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[Xelebes]

An interesting English-Cree word used in Northern Ontario: mayochup (shit-face)

https://globalnews.ca/news/5294292/m..._campaign=2014

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Colombian is Godly. A Colombian woman could turn me straight. Chilean is awful. Spain Spanish is the WORST OF ALL.

Huh? Wait, I live in Val-de-Marne where there is an originally Chilean small community of refugees that had to flee Pinochet's regime; I'm pretty sure the old original ones would be hurt by your offensive comment.
Bah, their kids are French anyway, so younger ones would hardly care about it.

Nevertheless, I agree that the real Spaniards have like some hair on the tongue, which is some kind of issue.
It's not super sexy indeed. The Catalans don't have that problem.

You know that anyone unable to speak the Lord's language (Fr, of course) is disqualified anyway.
That said, here's a local natural witch to turn you a straight fucker.

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I'm thinking of her cause I know a couple of guys in town addicted to horse races, and saw her on TV in a café today for lunch.
Betting on horses is a bad addiction. I suspect they lose more money than they earn from it.
Stupid, stupid addiction...

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by mousquet

.

Nevertheless, I agree that the real Spaniards have like some hair on the tongue, which is some kind of issue.
It's not super sexy indeed. The Catalans don't have that problem.
..

Yes, I love Spain but the "th" sound for the soft C in Spain really bugs me too. (All of my Spanish teachers have been Latin American, or at least speakers of Latin American Spanish.)

[SignalHillHiker]

On the Southern Shore (basically the entire southeast Avalon, from south of St. John's all around the peninsula to Colinet (and even beyond, the town this family is living in now is outside the Irish loop, almost to the former French capital) - this Irish family can even tell which families came from Wexford and which came from adjacent Waterford in Ireland, in the 1700s, based on how they sound and the expressions they use today.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfo...anch-1.5138239





And the Ireland comparison:





It reminds me of my father, who can always guess pretty accurately where a Newfoundlander is from based solely on a picture. And if he hears them speaking, he could tell you the town. I wish I had that level of understanding. I mean, I can tell you which part of St. John's someone is from, or if they're from Grand Bank or not, easy. But I'm not familiar with enough of the island to do it like Dad does, without exception.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

...

It reminds me of my father, who can always guess pretty accurately where a Newfoundlander is from based solely on a picture. And if he hears them speaking, he could tell you the town. I wish I had that level of understanding. I mean, I can tell you which part of St. John's someone is from, or if they're from Grand Bank or not, easy. But I'm not familiar with enough of the island to do it like Dad does, without exception.

Local people are more attuned to differences within their local areas, in the old days towns that were just one mile apart could have different accents, but now it's more blurred, and to me some Nflders. today often sound like they are from Nova Scotia. Conversely, much of it is also "put on" and I can usually tell; young professionals today are speaking in the uneducated fishermen's accents of the 1960s. When I watched the recent election coverage much of the accent seemed to disappear.

[SignalHillHiker]

I'm not sure why you seem to get some sort of satisfaction from posts like that? I don't understand the impulse to imagine today's youth are faking their accents, and that they're choosing uneducated fishermen as their inspiration?

In my experience, it's a roll of the dice. We're all taught to talk like Canadians in school. Some of us can, some of us can't. Jeddy1989's friend Beth could not fake her accent with a gun to her head. It's the thickest I have ever heard, and she's from Paradise. My parents sound exactly the same to me, but when they visited me on the mainland everyone said my mother had no accent and they couldn't understand my father. None of it is "fake", or put on for show.

You can tell when people dive into the accent for emphasis. It's just as obvious as Oprah speaking ebonics. Most people don't.

You really think, for example, that these families in the little town of Branch are researching English from the 1700s and purposefully choosing which accent they'd like to speak? And then deciding amongst themselves who should use the Wexford expressions and who should use the Waterford ones? That's just... ridiculous. And I don't understand the motivation for implying it.

There are lots of individuals, and even whole areas, of Newfoundland without a strong accent. Marty_McFly sounds like he's from Ontario to me. Doesn't change the fact that people like Beth are real, and not faking it.

As for accents being comparable in Nova Scotia, absolutely. Generally it's a little more Valley Girl than here, but there are pockets of Nova Scotia, especially on Cape Breton, that sound like the weakest Newfoundland accents to me.

Like if you labelled this video and told me it was Newfoundlanders, I'd believe it. Accents might be light, but they're the same as ours. The style of comedy is the same. They even look like us.

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"They sees us up here freezin', now freezin's lookin' good!" Love that.

[Architype]

Some of the accents heard in the media (i.e. 22 minutes) are "put on", and some people are capable of both. I'm not saying it's all a put on, but some if it is. Today, poor grammer often passes as a Newfie culture thing, I see it all the time, even in print; that attitude wasn't as present years ago. Good grammer was encouraged long before confederation (i.e. the queen's english). Just like in the UK, there are accents that sound better, others worse; in many cases, just like in the rest of Canada, it's often a reflection of education level and economic class.