Speech pattern and typographical variations across Canada

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Honestly, the name "Danny Williams" conjures up only "blowhard" in my mind, not an accent. I do recall thinking that Crosbie and (a bit less) Tobin used to lay it on a bit thick, back in the day, for theatrical effect.

Don't insult the King!

Honestly, though, I love the man. So much. He was our very first Townie Premier. All before and since have been from rural, less nationalist areas.

We'd still be have-nots if not for him.

[north 42]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It's not surprising at all. Even in Ottawa some distance from the border many of the radio station announcers (seem to make an effort to) sound American, and use American terms like "soda" for pop, "zee" for zed, etc. Except for the CBC of course.

In the Windsor area you have the added factor that a lot of the Windsor stations attempt to draw in American listeners and so almost "pretend" that they are American. Not all of them. But some of them. Sort of like the American stations in northern NY state which try to seduce the Montreal market with bilingual Montreal traffic reports, etc. I think I can pick one of them up here sometimes. I believe it's 94.7 FM and plays pop music.

EDIT: Here it is. They even have a website in French: http://947hits.com/?lang=fr This is an American radio station.

In Michigan, they use the term pop, like us.

[Xelebes]

I've never crossed the border so I don't know what the experience is like.

/too far from the border to make border crossings worthwhile.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by north 42

In Michigan, they use the term pop, like us.

That's funny because in a place like Ottawa most commercial radio deejays seem to try to expunge all Canadianisms from their speech, like "soda" vs. "pop". That's just one that has always struck me.

I would suspect most of them in the Windsor-Detroit area would however say "zee" as opposed to "zed". As would a good number of ordinary Windsorites. No?

[lio45]

Originally Posted by esquire

If I were crossing at Stanhope and the only guards there were unilingual French speakers, I'd be downloading the Bescherelle app post-haste and muddling through in my best Western Canadian high school French.

You can ALWAYS be served in English at Stanhope. Rest assured of that.

(And I have never seen a Vermonter having to download the Bescherelle app to get through.)

The guy at J&J gas (in Norton VT) speaks French like any other Québécois though -- and depending on who's on duty in Norton, you can hope to cross as an unilingual Franco, fill up, and come back. The only step out of the three where service is French is uncertain is crossing OUT from Stanhope.

[Boris2k7]

I've used the Roosville Border Crossing the most (on the way down to Whitefish/Kalispell) and it's usually pretty speedy, not much hassle. Getting into the U.S. is normally faster than getting back into Canada, at least in every one of my experiences. No idea at all how they do with French language service.

(if you are heading down to that area you should try using the Carway border crossing... the route through Glacier National Park is absolutely spectacular, but it's closed during the winter)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

You can ALWAYS be served in English at Stanhope. Rest assured of that.

(And I have never seen a Vermonter having to download the Bescherelle app to get through.)

The guy at J&J gas (in Norton VT) speaks French like any other Québécois though -- and depending on who's on duty in Norton, you can hope to cross as an unilingual Franco, fill up, and come back. The only step out of the three where service is French is uncertain is crossing OUT from Stanhope.

Federal service points across Quebec (including border crossings) are the undisputed kings of seamless bilingual service to the public in French and English in Canada. They do even better in the stats than Ottawa and New Brunswick do.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

This is what always amazes me. It would never occur to me to speak other than English in dealing with a federal civil servant in Quebec. Ever. To switch from French to English at a bilingual border station is beyond my comprehension.

FWIW, my pride << my objective to fill up my B-3 brokerage form myself and proceed to enter Canada as easily, quickly, and smoothly as possible with my Texan/Oklahoman cargo every time, so what occurs to me, mainly, is that I have to be as accomodating as possible to the person who has the power to let me through easily (which nearly always ends up being the case in both directions) or not. Language is secondary. Anything that I think has the tiniest chance of being considered smartass behavior by them is a big no-no.

I have never given them the slightest hint that I wished to switch to French at the Michigan/Ontario crossings, for that reason.

Québécois patriots would be disappointed to see me bend over like that on the language issue in Canada, but, that's business.


Edit: if I'm alone in my car, then that's different, I might entertain the idea of being slightly smartassish on the language front. But I have never yet had a chance to reenter at a ROC location without being in a less-simple-than-just-me-and-empty-vehicle situation.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Windsor has a substantial franco-Ontarian community. .

Yeah, the Windsor-Detroit area was actually first settled by the French in the late 1600s and eventually there were a bunch of French towns and villages in the area. Even on the Detroit side I think there were churches with masses in French until the middle of the 20th century.

They were demographically swamped long ago on both sides of the border, though, although there is a francophone community in and around Windsor that persists. Though as with all such communities they are beset by assimilation that reduces their numbers quite a bit with each generation.

The main public affairs "face of TFO" (French equivalent to TVO) and basically the francophone equivalent to Steve Paikin, Gisèle Quenneville, is from a small Franco-Ontarian town near Windsor.

I sort of knew her at one point when we were both younger as we had some friends in common.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

FWIW, my pride << my objective to fill up my B-3 brokerage form myself and proceed to enter Canada as easily, quickly, and smoothly as possible with my Texan/Oklahoman cargo every time, so what occurs to me, mainly, is that I have to be as accomodating as possible to the person who has the power to let me through easily (which nearly always ends up being the case in both directions) or not. Language is secondary. Anything that I think has the tiniest chance of being considered smartass behavior by them is a big no-no.

I have never given them the slightest hint that I wished to switch to French at the Michigan/Ontario crossings, for that reason.

Québécois patriots would be disappointed to see me bend over like that on the language issue in Canada, but, that's business.


Edit: if I'm alone in my car, then that's different, I might entertain the idea of being slightly smartassish on the language front. But I have never yet had a chance to reenter at a ROC location without being in a less-simple-than-just-me-and-empty-vehicle situation.

I think that most Québécois patriots are lucid enough to know that one-way "language territoriality" in such matters is essentially the reality we live with in Canada, with French + English in Quebec, and English only (unless you're lucky) in most of the rest of the country.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I think that most Québécois patriots are lucid enough to know that one-way "language territoriality" in such matters is essentially the reality we live with in Canada, with French + English in Quebec, and English only (unless you're lucky) in most of the rest of the country.

Good point... "giving up" on "language rights" outside Quebec is actually a very different matter than within it. THAT is what would be frowned upon by patriots. Insisting on having another agent drive to Emerson... is pointless. And stupid (IMO). Any Quebec border crossing though would be a completely different matter.

So, you're right, no Québécois could ever fault me, on those trips, for switching French off and English on all the way from TX through OK, MO, IL, IN, OH, MI, ON, then switching English off and French on at Rivière-Beaudette.

Technically the border is at Windsor (or Sarnia) but psychologically and culturally (and linguistically of course) it's where the 401 turns into the 20.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

Good point... "giving up" on "language rights" outside Quebec is actually a very different matter than within it. THAT is what would be frowned upon by patriots. Insisting on having another agent drive to Emerson... is pointless. And stupid (IMO). Any Quebec border crossing though would be a completely different matter.

So, you're right, no Québécois could ever fault me, on those trips, for switching French off and English on all the way from TX through OK, MO, IL, IN, OH, MI, ON, then switching English off and French on at Rivière-Beaudette.

Technically the border is at Windsor (or Sarnia) but psychologically and culturally (and linguistically of course) it's where the 401 turns into the 20.

That's what my kids say anyway. When driving back from the States, in all honesty they tell us they really feel like they're home when they reach the middle of the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge.

[SignalHillHiker]

This cracks me up.

Not only do they mentally separate Canada from Newfoundland in their minds, they almost have local accents themselves for some vowels.

• Video Link

Funny they picked "car". jeddy1989 wants to cry when mainlanders say it, it's the word that aggravates him most.

Mine, BTW, is "downtown". Cuts right through me in mainland accents.

[Acajack]

What do you guys think of this accent? John Hancock is a sportscaster for CBC Radio. Originally from southern Ontario but lives in Nova Scotia.

http://947hits.com/?lang=fr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbonkf9RLlo

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Acajack

What do you guys think of this accent? John Hancock is a sportscaster for CBC Radio. Originally from southern Ontario but lives in Nova Scotia.

http://947hits.com/?lang=fr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbonkf9RLlo

Listened to him for years when he did the national sports for CBC. He was always oddly transfixed by attendance numbers, dutifully reporting them for every Winnipeg sports event as opposed to other salient details. ("Last night in AHL action, the Manitoba Moose beat the Houston Aeros 4-1 in front of over 6,800 fans at the Winnipeg Arena! Moving on to football, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are expecting a crowd of over 27,000 for tonight's game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at CanadInns Stadium!")

He always struck me as having a very generic Anglophone broadcaster accent, definitely not tied into any locale that I can think of.

[Trevor3]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

This cracks me up.

Not only do they mentally separate Canada from Newfoundland in their minds, they almost have local accents themselves for some vowels.

• Video Link

Funny they picked "car". jeddy1989 wants to cry when mainlanders say it, it's the word that aggravates him most.

Mine, BTW, is "downtown". Cuts right through me in mainland accents.

I think it's awesome that you brought this up. When I was living in St. John's my friends and I (all west coasters) had a running joke of trying to pronounce the word most like Doc O'Keefe. Some sort of over enunciated "OW" with a weird way of blending into the "n".

Conversely, one of the guys had a girlfriend from St. John's who thoroughly enjoyed teasing us about our pronunciation of "time" and similar words, apparently we're twangy or something, I don't hear it whatever it is. I know a lot of outports tend to say something like "t-oy-me" instead of time which drives me up the wall.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

Listened to him for years when he did the national sports for CBC. He was always oddly transfixed by attendance numbers, dutifully reporting them for every Winnipeg sports event as opposed to other salient details. ("Last night in AHL action, the Manitoba Moose beat the Houston Aeros 4-1 in front of over 6,800 fans at the Winnipeg Arena! Moving on to football, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are expecting a crowd of over 27,000 for tonight's game against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at CanadInns Stadium!")

He always struck me as having a very generic Anglophone broadcaster accent, definitely not tied into any locale that I can think of.

To me he has what I would call a stereotypical hoser accent. It's a mix of North American and British Isles almost working class intonations.

I believe he is the cross-Canada sports guy for all of the CBC Radio local mornings shows, and does local-specific sportscasts for each city, but from a single location. Likely Halifax.

[SignalHillHiker]

Acajack: He enunciates so clearly. It's easy to understand.

Trevor3: Here, us lower class folk try to pronounce "well" the way Doc does. He puts a half dozen or more syllables into it.

Time is another good one. It's actually one of the words I thought Tegan (or Sara) pronounced like a local.

To do it like a Townie... there has to be a very slight rise or drop on the I, and the I has to be as long as the rest of the word. And every so slightly change the I into an E before starting the sound of the M.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Acajack

To me he has what I would call a stereotypical hoser accent. It's a mix of North American and British Isles almost working class intonations.

I believe he is the cross-Canada sports guy for all of the CBC Radio local mornings shows, and does local-specific sportscasts for each city, but from a single location. Likely Halifax.

I'd agree that it doesn't sound like a particularly haughty accent, but to some degree I think that having one would be a liability for a sportscaster in this country. Just about every one I can think of has a pretty informal tone that would be right at home in a warehouse lunchroom (as opposed to, say, the University Club).

I remember hearing Hancock on CBC for years in Winnipeg and while I lived in Edmonton, but I haven't heard him on the air in Winnipeg for quite a while now. They still use national sportsdesk people but it's not often Hancock, who was always billed as being in Halifax.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

I'd agree that it doesn't sound like a particularly haughty accent, but to some degree I think that having one would be a liability for a sportscaster in this country. Just about every one I can think of has a pretty informal tone that would be right at home in a warehouse lunchroom (as opposed to, say, the University Club).

I remember hearing Hancock on CBC for years in Winnipeg and while I lived in Edmonton, but I haven't heard him on the air in Winnipeg for quite a while now. They still use national sportsdesk people but it's not often Hancock, who was always billed as being in Halifax.

Truth be told I am not too fond of that accent.

Also not crazy about the guy's accent here (co-anchor). Pronouncing all your S's as if they were soft SH's... makes my skin crawl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tHRFOOZ45Q