Re: Canadians
Colin Pink (colin@cpink.demon.co.uk)
Fri, 30 Jul 1999 10:59:28 +0100
In message <v04003a12b3c63dc8f4af@[24.5.103.188]>, erespess@inil.com
writes
>>Whenever people ask if I've been to another country, I tell them I've
>>been to Poland, Italy and Canada. Then they yell at me and tell me that
>>Canada isn't another country. It's just part of America....
>
>isn't that funny? my father lives in michigan, and one day when i visited
>last christmas, we decided to go to canada. it was very similar in a lot
>of ways. but i was struck by a couple of striking differences. first,
>i've never seen an american city as clean as where we were. i can't
>remember which city it was though. the other thing i noticed was that
>people were very sincerely nice. there was such a lack of pretention. it
>was a pleasant change from here.
>
>elizabeth
>
>
Just to give a complete outsider's view of the difference between Canada
and the U.S. I'm British and when I visited the States I was struck by
how foreign it felt. American culture is a lot more alien to me than I
expected. If anything I felt even more foreign than I do when I visit
other European countries. When I went across the border to Canada I
instantly felt more at home: compared to America Canada felt like being
back in England, the attitudes of the people seemed a lot closer to
'home'.
Another thing that floored me in America was that people didn't have a
clue I was a native English speaker. When I went to museums they would
offer me guides in French or German, they could tell I couldn't speak
American properly but weren't able to identify me as English!
Maybe Americans have a certain idea of an English accent which
corresponds exclusively to either a provincial north country type accent
(a la Daphne's appalling bad imitation mancunian accent in 'Frasier' - I
was fascinated to hear that actress being interviewed and her normal
accent is about the same as mine) or a very posh upper-crust accent
(Hugh Grant) but can't compute an ordinary Londoner's accent.
--
Colin Pink