December 14, 2003

• It looks like an article from the paper that wishes it was the Globe and Mail. But I think that really it's an article from the Onion that migrated across the web to take up residence on the National Post page. There is no other way to explain how just beautifully funny it is. 'An American from San Diego is quoted saying: "What bugs me about Canadians, if I may, is that they wear that damn patch on their bags, the Canadian flag patch. That way, they differentiate themselves from us."' That, and we're from another country :) For the record, I don't think any Americans would have said any of this without being prompted by the Canadian consulates. I mean, I live in the U.S., and my friends don't even care enough about Canada to think about it. The world stops at the 49th paralell, and Alaska floats like an island off in the Pacific, like Hawaii, only colder.
• It's like this. We feel weird being the only kid on the continent who decided to disobey our parents. We have this younger sibling who just seems to effortlessly get along with everyone, who never argued with Mom and Dad, who helped our parents break into the our new house and burn things after we moved away. Then, our parents rented them a new place right next to ours. *cries* Canada got all the good toys, and our parents loved them more. /extremely dysfunctional comparison.
• I like that analogy. It works very well.
• Those pesky Canadians....with their pride and all ;-)
• Could this be the first step to placing Canada on the Axis of Countries Making Us Look Bad? I can see the PSAs now: "When you smoke marijuana, you're supporting British Columbians." Oh and please don't mention anything about healthcare while you're here either. The topic could easily send someone into a rage and if you get injured in America, well, you see where I'm going with this...
• We can always tell Canadians that we took Wayne Gretzky from them. ;-)
• I think, if true, it might have something to do with the generally if recently held idea down here that, when abroad, Canadian=Good and American=Target. Some of us would like to go to Europe someday - perhaps even Asia, South America and Africa! - without having a bullseye on our backs and wondering if the smiling waiter who seems so nice is really slipping a little rat-piss-or-worse into the curry friggin meatballs.
• Fes
• I just ask anyone with a North American accent to say "about".
• I can't tell the difference between a Canadian and an American accent. Sure, I can pick out the Southerner, the Bostonian, the Mid-Westerner and sometimes Californians, but someone from Maine or Wisconsin? I'd never know. And I almost never guess someone is Canadian based on their accent. But then, most Canadians I know are from the West or Southern Ontario, where the dialect is very affected by American English. Or maybe it is that the prestige accent in the US seems to be more like standard Canadian English than any of the major American dialects. That said, I have friends who are endlessly amused by my supposed accent. I have no idea what they are talking about.
• I tend to pick up accents when I live in a place for very long, and picked up the Ontario "ou" some years ago, with the result I've been trying to shake it ever since. Still pops out once in a while on me, which is how I came to find out that, in the States, people from the Tidewater of Virginia pronounce the "ou" in the same way folk from Ontario do. Neither western Canadians nor those from the Maritimes use the Ontario-tidewater pronounciation.
• Wolof - maybe. Though I live in St. Louis, most of which speaks that flat newsman-English (with a singular variation that finds them pronoucing "forty" as "farty"), I retain a fairly hard Chicago accent("yo, ma, bum me a fin so's I can get a dahg wit everyting and watch da Bayers game...") from my upbringing. I dunno, the idea of pretending to be Canadian to save my skin seems a bit cowardly. Canada is a great country, several of whose people I admire a lot, but I'm an American, for better or worse.
• More of a question about the ability of people whose forst lengwiches are nit Onglish to discern various shades of English accent than an incitement to cowardice, but then you knew that, didn't you?
• I guessed it :) Although really, I don't speak a whit of Spanish (well, "dos cervezas por favor" got me through a long weekend in Tijuana, but other than that zippo) and I can pretty accurately tell variations among Spain, Mexico and Cuba. So it might not be too insane to think that a Bangladeshi waiter might be able to discern Ottawanese from Chicagovian.
• This Ask Meta thread seemed vaguely
• We got another one! Yee haw!
• It's a pity the original link isn't up, but thankfully BBF put enough of the article up. To recap: Canadians should be careful not to appear "boastful" to Americans, who are insecure because of the war in Iraq and admit they are annoyed by northerners showing off the maple leaf on their luggage when they travel, a federal report says. "This underscores the American sensitivity at feeling rejected by the rest of the world ..." *muffled chortling. Reads jb's pulled quote* "What bugs me about Canadians, if I may, is that they wear that damn patch on their bags, the Canadian flag patch. That way, they differentiate themselves from us."' Bwah ha ha ha ha! *reads jb's comment: That, and we're from another country :)* BWAH HA HA HA HA! I have to agree with BBF, it's hard to sum up all the feelings I get from just reading this small portion. Oh, and btw, I agree with Fes about being an American, for better or worse--pity about the worse of late (though I say Chicagoan not Chicagovian).
• Shytowner? Windizen?
• I smell loyalist in that parental analogy. Ya know what, America? We just farted.
• General Brock would be proud.
• Don't dictate to me, Canadian leader tells U.S. ooo gettin' a little uppity eh? good!