Thread of Shibbolleths

[niwell]

Originally Posted by lio45

So yeah, I agree, you can compare Montreal's Échangeur Turcot with the High Five Interchange in Dallas Texas, and then St. John's obviously looks like Dublin after that. In that sense, yes, I see your point.

If we are looking at it from a strictly architectural point of view, then Montreal has a fair amount in common with older, Northeastern American cities. Moreso than Toronto I think. But yes, the comparisons stop there!

[lio45]

Originally Posted by niwell

Because Mitsou doesn't appeal to me at all, particularly with the style she has going on in the older picture.

Same here, but the problem is mainly in the style in that picture (and everything it normally says about the person...)

She looks like the Russian hookers my cousins were having fun showing me on the streets as we were driving around in Nice. (10+ years ago, I have no idea if it's still like that.)

[lio45]

Originally Posted by niwell

If we are looking at it from a strictly architectural point of view, then Montreal has a fair amount in common with older, Northeastern American cities. Moreso than Toronto I think. But yes, the comparisons stop there!

Yeah, I recall lately that some of us discussed this precisely (in a very fitting discussion for a site like SSP) and ended up agreeing that Montreal, due to having been the country's main city at that time, outdoes Toronto for these grand commercial buildings so typical of 1920s and 1930s American CBDs.

(Toronto's particularly weak on that one -- many lesser American cities beat it there.)

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by lio45

So yeah, I agree, you can compare Montreal's Échangeur Turcot with the High Five Interchange in Dallas Texas, and then St. John's obviously looks like Dublin after that. In that sense, yes, I see your point.

Suburbia will eventually make us all Americans anyway. Kids growing up here (excluding projects at the bottom):



Don't typically end up as interesting or cool as the ones growing up here:



The former gets you Great Big Sea. The latter gets you Hey Rosetta.

[lio45]

I would also add that I suspect (I've never been to St. John's) that there's absolutely nothing in St. John's that does not get exceeded by an equivalent area in the old core of Quebec City for feeling "non North American", for any possible metric you may think of.



BTW, if you want to consider this a challenge, no problem You're more than welcome to come up with stuff.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

It depends on what you're looking at. If you're looking at the whole picture, Newfoundland definitely shares more culturally with America than Quebec does.

The isolation has produced interesting traits (for a city the size of St. John's) that you don't really find anywhere in North America.

So yeah, I agree, you can compare Montreal's Échangeur Turcot with the High Five Interchange in Dallas Texas, and then St. John's obviously looks like Dublin after that. In that sense, yes, I see your point.

The school kids in St. John's read the same literature as the school kids in America, though. Meanwhile, the school kids in Québec share their classic literature with the school kids in St-Pierre et Miquelon, not with the ones in St. John's.

Newfoundland is certainly more distinct than Quebec in terms of what it looks like. Quebec is urbanized with big cities and abuts the industrial, demographic and urban heartland of the northeastern part of the continent.

I also think that Newfoundland is by far the most distinct part of anglophone North America, if you discount the anglo Caribbean islands. And maybe Belize.

Certainly the most culturally distinct English-speaking place in Canada and the U.S.

But obviously language makes a huge difference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Codco, Rick Mercer, Mary Walsh, Great Big Sea, etc. can gain traction in Lethbridge in a way that Rock et Belles Oreilles, Louis-José Houde, Marie-Mai and La Guerre des Tuques cannot.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by lio45

BTW, if you want to consider this a challenge, no problem You're more than welcome to come up with stuff.

No, definitely agreed. Pity, because that would've been fun.

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

But I've had people think our accents are fake because most of us only seem to have one when we're talking among ourselves or drinking.

This one irritates the living hell out of me.

Especially because my natural accent isn't a typical east coast accent.

Apparently it's ultra similiar to folks up along the border in northern ontario.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kIug44bGTw

The first minute of this is as close to my natural accent as I can find.

It doesn't really have anything remotely irish about it in terms of intonation.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by Stryker

This one irritates the living hell out of me.

Especially because my natural accent isn't a typical east coast accent.

Apparently it's ultra similiar to folks up along the border in northern ontario.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kIug44bGTw

The first minute of this is as close to my natural accent as I can find.

It doesn't really have anything remotely irish about it in terms of intonation.

Wow, that's amazing. "It goes forever" made me cringe - 100% stereotypical mainland accent. But then things like "dere", "mudder", etc. that are all local.

I went to college in Stephenville, but never encountered that mix before.

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Wow, that's amazing. "It goes forever" made me cringe - 100% stereotypical mainland accent. But then things like "dere", "mudder", etc. that are all local.

I went to college in Stephenville, but never encountered that mix before.

Stephenville sounds directly american because of the base.

That's a directly flat bay accent, and I'm original from stephenville crossing which is near flat bay.

But again Even in high school you wouldn't talk with an accent, the fact that people in st john's do that type of thing is just so odd to me.

That being said, our dere and mudder, isn't said the same way as you guys to it.

It goes forever is more directly the accent as well.

How he says rear view mirror stands out as spot on for the accent.

I can assure you though it's different from the generic mainlander accent.

[Acajack]

Are those people in the video aboriginal and if so, does that influence their accent?

[Stryker]

https://youtu.be/UNSMT0XEBwQ This is from the other side of stephenville.

This is exactly what my best friends mother sounds like (still speaks like that after 12 years in toronto.

The whole area has a bunch of weird accents due to the french newfie american mix.

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Are those people in the video aboriginal and if so, does that influence their accent?

MEtis would be more correct everyone in the area has a mix of native blood down the line.


People say native but metis is more closer to the truth.

Some towns have more native blood and some have less.

But in general it's historic thinger.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Are those people in the video aboriginal and if so, does that influence their accent?

Died laughing given the content of the video. I realize that's not enough to know... but looking at a video of a powwow and asking if they're aboriginal is great.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Certainly the most culturally distinct English-speaking place in Canada and the U.S.

I'd say certainly in the top two among states and provinces, but I'm not sure in which order Newfoundland and Hawaii would actually slot (and it might depend on the metrics used).

If territories count, though, they probably both get dwarfed by places like Nunavut and Puerto Rico for "least mainstream-North-American feeling possible while still in US/Canada".

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Died laughing given the content of the video. I realize that's not enough to know... but looking at a video of a powwow and asking if they're aboriginal is great.

Well, the people in the car might not be aboriginal, and simply be attending the pow-wow if it's an important event in the region.

[Rico Rommheim]

Originally Posted by lio45

Yeah, I recall lately that some of us discussed this precisely (in a very fitting discussion for a site like SSP) and ended up agreeing that Montreal, due to having been the country's main city at that time, outdoes Toronto for these grand commercial buildings so typical of 1920s and 1930s American CBDs.

(Toronto's particularly weak on that one -- many lesser American cities beat it there.)

Wow talk about a blast from the past. You can see PVM 5 before its reclad into glass.

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Are those people in the video aboriginal and if so, does that influence their accent?

Sorry I gave a short blurb had to get the bus.


The long winded answer is pretty much everyone historically from the bay stgeorge area, has some amount of native blood. However a huge influx of people from around the island came during ww2 to build the air force base, so at the center of town you had an influx of traditional anglo-irish.

Most often it's ususally confined to a grandmother or a grandfather who was maybe a quarter.

However it's become a cash grab from an area where freeloading off the government is sorta socially excepted in the open.


It's odd because you have people that are a legit quarter or whatever native being absolutely unwilling to acknowledge they're not completely white, and you have the other extreme of people 1/64 native claiming to be just "native".

It's an odd situation because you had people being acknowledged to be mikmaq in the 1920s, and a generation after receiving no acknowledgement by the federal government.(when we joined canada).

Add to that when the american's came being newfie, wasn't a cool thing in the area. (I never heard anyone in my life say yes by' in stephenville)

In general people that associated with being part natives were associated with being welfare trash(which many technically still are)

Jackietar and the like were slurs you would hear at one point in history.

In the last 10 years or so people have begun to be very open about it though.


EDIT: There's a huge portion of the area settled by cape bretoners.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Certainly the most culturally distinct English-speaking place in Canada and the U.S.

Not to navel gaze, but I think we [me too] are imagining that there's this standard Anglo North American who lives a reasonably-educated, white suburban middle class lifestyle in a semi-decent Midwestern city(Milwaukee, maybe, or Indianapolis), and we're sort of measuring the "cultural distance" from other examples to this Homo Americanus. This person is kind of like your stock early 90s sitcom character.

So, some suburbanite from Southwestern Ontario will certainly have more in common with this person than someone from Newfoundland, but whether the Newfoundlander is more distant than, say, someone from the Ozarks, or a rancher in west Texas or a Jewish person from Queens is sort of hard to say. I mean, if we dropped any one of them into this Hollywood-imagined suburban Midwestern home, they'd all stick out like sore thumbs.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

They don't speak French with you the bilingual anglo, or no French at all with anyone, including themselves?

Where are they originally from, out of curiosity? (No need to name the exact town, but just an idea of the region...)

Timmins and Penetanguishene. I have never heard either speak French and as far as I know they speak English with their siblings. The only hint, apart from surnames, is the fact that one of them is referred to as "grandpere" by the rug rats.