About a boot
Several readers, presumably Canadian readers, have written in to complain that they do not say “a boot” for “about,” and that I have my head up my ass.
So let me clarify.
“A boot” is a comedic exaggeration, the same way Europeans trying to sound American end up channeling John Wayne or De Niro.
Very few Canadians confuse their adverbs and footwear. It’s altogether possible that your “ow” sounds are created deeper in your mouths, just like Americans. But based on my experience casting two television shows with professional actors who have training in “sounding American,” there is a notable difference in words like “out,” “about,” and “house.” So much so that I’ll rewrite dialogue to avoid those words if possible.
Here’s where you need to climb off my ass.
Just because I say something is different, doesn’t mean I’m saying it’s wrong. There’s nothing “right” about the various American accents. But if a character is supposed to be from a specific place in the U.S., his accent should reflect that.
Yes, Canada is a big country. Vancouver doesn’t sound exactly like Toronto. But Vancouver doesn’t sound exactly like Seattle, either, and they’re a lot closer.
Just because you can’t hear your accent, doesn’t mean you don’t have one. This more than anything infuriates me.
I grew up in the American Midwest. That’s my accent. I can’t really hear it, partly because American newscasters are trained to emulate this accent. You can hear a sample of it here. I sound pretty much like Kansas One, except that I’m older (35) and my voice is deeper.
Click here to listen to a speaker from Toronto. About a third of way into the recording, she says, “You have that in, what, Michigan? That’s part of what’s weird about being in Canada.”
The “about” is what I’m talking about.
For “sorry,” try this recording, also from Ontario: “Sarah was sentimental, so this made her feel sorry for the beautiful bird.” Compare the same sentence in the Southern California recording.
Just so it’s said: I love Canada. You’ve got national health care, seasons, and gay marriage. Your film crews are friendly, and in Toronto, they feed a hot meal (a “substantial”) three hours after call. So don’t take my observations as criticisms. To a lot of the world, “not sounding American” is a compliment.
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December 6th, 2005 at 12:26 pm
New debate! New debate!
It doesn’t sound like ‘a boot’ to me, it sounds like ‘abowwwt’
Sounds kinda nice, too.
December 6th, 2005 at 12:31 pm
Smackdown! Didn’t know John was so feisty. You tell ‘em, brother!
December 6th, 2005 at 1:05 pm
And don’t even try to start in on the Newfoundland accent. Though we have an easy time of spotting (hearing?) those other Canadians from a mile (oop, kilometer!) away.
December 6th, 2005 at 1:28 pm
Your impression of the “Canadian” accent is probably because the majority of people you’re seeing (I’m just assuming) are from Toronto. That’s really where most of our famous Canadian actors are from. But, as Steve said, Newfoundlanders sound very, very different than them. They sound very different from Nova Scotian people (which is quite close), and Cape Breton Islanders from Nova Scotia sound very, very different from even mainlanders from Nova Scotia, and they’re in the same small province!
We don’t say aboot here in Nova Scotia (well, most don’t), but people from southern Nova Scotia have a disctinct drawal. A friend of mine went to Cuba on vacation and was questioned by armed security because he had lots of camera equipment and sounded “American” due to his slight drawal.
If I was writing a screenplay, I would exclude the word “roof” from it. Most Amercians that I’ve heard say it (Bob Vila especially) say “ruff,” not “roof.” But, that’s probably like the aboot thing; can’t speak for everyone.
December 6th, 2005 at 1:46 pm
Hmmm. In my life I’ve run into a couple of people who believe that many Canadians do not say “a boot” when they are using the word “about.” They were all Canadians who said “aboot.”
Seriously, Senor August is right, why do you get so sensitive about having an accent. To you, I have a funny accent, because I…(wait for it)…DON’T SOUND LIKE YOU. Ta da. I don’t feel bad about it. Besides, every time you point out someone’s accent to them, it doesn’t mean you are mocking them, or that you don’t enjoy it. Most people I know are aware of accents because they appreciate them.
December 6th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
ha ha ha
I live and work in Southern California.
But I work with (on an almost weekly basis) some very fine folks from Canada. In Edmonton.
And it’s “aboot” all the way. 8-)
December 6th, 2005 at 2:22 pm
What impresses me most about Canadians, besides the maple syrup, is their referring to Native Americans as “First Nation.” I’m not sure why we yanks never put that together.
December 6th, 2005 at 3:46 pm
Geez, there is a lot of whinging aboot nothing. Sense of humour people, sense of humour.
December 6th, 2005 at 4:31 pm
I think we should start a social club of the “Canadians who read John August”. Could be good networking. ;-)
December 6th, 2005 at 4:54 pm
Vancouverites definitely say “about” differently than we do. It’s actually closer to “a boat” then “a boot”. For “sorry”, they say “sore ee”, whereas we tend to say “sari”. Their “not” is similar to the Bostonian “naught” than our “knot”.
Actually, the accent that fascinates me the most is mine. I grew up on Staten Island. My mother was from Brooklyn. My father from Manhattan. As a child, I had a strong S.I. accent, which is pretty similar to the Brooklyn accent. Somewhere along the line, though, I dropped it. Completely. With rare exception (I still say “theer ter” instead of “thee-ter” for theater, and “rooned” instead of “roo-inned” for ruined), my accent is flat. Completely flat. No one knows where the hell I’m from.
Weirdest part?
I don’t remember it even happening.
My sister still has an accent.
By the way, in answer to your comment question, an orange is “arr-enj”, not “awr-enj”. :) New Yorkers will open that “arr” up even further towards an ah as in “pop”, but mine is more like like a pirate’s arr, like harbor.
December 6th, 2005 at 5:28 pm
If you write dialect for a national group even though you know most members of that group don’t talk that way, you are perpetuating a stereotype. Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, anyone?
For the exact issue you are trying to address, to the extent you are “trying” at all, look up Canadian raising. Then prepare for a shock when you learn that Martha Stewart speaks it too.
December 6th, 2005 at 5:48 pm
Here’s my burning question: Why do Canadians get offended when they get confused with Americans (many going to the trouble of affixing a maple leaf to their luggage when traveling abroad to clarify), but then also get irritated when they are told they don’t sound like Americans? You can only have it one way, you hate being told you’re like us or you hate being told you’re different. Pick.
December 6th, 2005 at 6:04 pm
Joe:
Huh? I don’t think this discussion is about writing dialect at all, much less perpetuating stereotypes. It’s about whether people from different parts of North America pronounce certain words differently, which they do. If Craig or others are writing out the phonetics, or offering analogies, it’s because this is an old-fashion written-down blog, not a fancy podcast with audio.
And hey! You’re right! Martha does pronounce things differently than most Americans on television. For instance, she pronounces the “h” in “herb.” It’s interesting. Shocking? Not so much.
December 6th, 2005 at 7:22 pm
In 1990 I moved to the South, well, more like shipped to the South, but that’s another story. Anyhow, I don’t think I’ve ever, EVER, met anyone from the South who has a Southern accent like I hear in movies. Hollywood has managed to capture a Southern accent that virtually died out about 40 years ago.
I’m not saying there’s not an accent in the South. I just don’t think we hear it portrayed accurately on film. There are a few very old holdouts who have maintained a “classical� Southern accent. You can find these people on the plantation still or chaperoning at Cotillion dances. Most of the younger crowd has lost this accent.
Now we do have redneck and hick accents, but I think every state has a little of this. Find the mullet haircuts, find the accent.
Oddly, many Southern actors have been told that they didn’t have enough of a Southern accent while on the set.
I’m aboot at the end, but I will leave you with this. I discovered that “ya’ll� is singular.
“All ya’ll� is plural.
December 6th, 2005 at 8:05 pm
It’s a strange dialect we Canadian-type speak. But mostly it’s American influenced. I live essentially right next to the United States, and half of my television reception reflects that. So if I go into the Northern bits of Canada, I find that people think I’m American. So I guess I’m running somewhere along the Gold Standard of sounding like I’m “North American”, rather than Canadian or American. But, truth be told, no one really cares…
December 6th, 2005 at 8:15 pm
Hi all,
Finally, a discussion where I can offer a constructive, experienced opinion…
Wait for it…
So, I’m from New England… Massachusetts… Boston. (Bawston)
I can’t tell you how many times people here in LA ask me what part of N.Y. I’m from. (I can’t tell you, but I sure wish I had a dollar (Dollah) for every time.)
For what’s worth, I didn’t read John’s original post as a slam on the Canadian accent, more like a discussion on accents and actors during the grind of casting. If you want Canadian slaming, check out South Park on any given night.
Color me impressed that people are able to control their accents. As for me, one call home reactivates it throughly.
So, if we ever meet, and I ask you if you’ve seen my khakis, I’m not talking about (A-bowt) pants.
Figure it out.
Thanks for a great blog John.
December 6th, 2005 at 9:06 pm
“Here’s where you need to climb off my ass.” Hehe
December 7th, 2005 at 1:18 am
I always thought my dad was just joking when he’d occasionally stress a lispy “th” for every “s” sound. “Think-oh!” (Five), and so on. Huh? Then I learned about the Castilian accent, and that the Spanish my parents spoke around the house (they immigrated from the Dominican Republic) was only one of many “Spanishes” available (their families were originally from Spain)… A lesson I learned the hard way, my first trip to Mexico: I could hardly understand a word.
December 7th, 2005 at 1:22 am
I do not say “ruff” when I mean roof. Bob Villa is odd. Everyone refers to him as “Vee-la.” When he says his own name, it’s “VEEEEEE-la,” as if he were some second-in-command to Serpentor and the legions of Cobra La. He also says “FEEEEE-ma.” He likem’s his “ee’s” I guess.
I too speak with a American Midwest accent, though I was raised primarily in Vermont. One or two words I have (I can’t recal which) are not AM. Nevertheless, I enjoy confusing Vermont locals when I’m the half-Filipino boy whose accent they cannot place (Or, Hispanic boy, Native American, Samoan, Japanese, Chinese, Korean… y’get it. They have no idea what I am).
Questions to all — my wife is from northern New York State. She says “elemenTARY”… I’ve always said “elemenTREE.” Is this toe-may-toe/toe-mah-toe or is there actually a right way?
December 7th, 2005 at 2:47 am
Martha Stewart is a bit of an Eliza Doolittle. I remember reading that she studiously worked to overcome her New Jersey accent, and I think the result is a very odd, strained, practiced manner of speech. What’s the point of covering up your past accent if your current one is also remarkable?
December 7th, 2005 at 7:29 am
everyone knows it’s not Canada, it’s Canaderr…sheesh get it right eh? (spoken like a true transplanted ex-Canuck)
December 7th, 2005 at 7:49 am
For another listen at the Canadian “sore-ree” watch some Jeopardy. Alex does it all the time.
I have the Cleveland accent. It’s probably really the most generic accent in the US. We pretty much pronounce everything the way any American English dictionary tells you it’s pronounced. So it’s “oar-enj” not “arr-enj,” and “roof” with the oo sounding like the oo in boot, not the oo in book.
December 7th, 2005 at 8:25 am
Actually, the Columbus, Ohio accent is the most generic. Clevelanders seem to be speaking out of their noses (especially people from Parma). The word “box” is pronounced more like “baax,” as if youÅ•e impersonating a lamb. And the word “bad” gains a syllable, becoming “beeyad.”
I’ve lived in Cleveland for 4 years. I need to move back to Cincinnati, where people say “please” when they mean “I beg your pardon.”
December 7th, 2005 at 12:16 pm
Can’t we all just get along and speak Swahili? I heard it’s THIS close to being the international standard language… I know it. Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking.
December 7th, 2005 at 5:37 pm
This is funny…John, like I said before, sure there are differences in accents between an American and a Canadian, but only in so much as there are differences between a Torontonian and a guy from Vancouver, or someone from Chicago, Boston, NY, San Fran, etc. Should you be aware of that when you’re casting a Manitoban for a part of someone who’s supposed to be from Atlanta? Sure. But you’d also have to be aware of a guy from Virginia’s accent if you’re casting him to play a guy from Atlanta. See my point? I think the Canadians who have spoken up are pissed because to lump them in the same category as someone with an Australian accent or a British accent is ludicrous. You’re not going to get confuse a Canadian accent with an Australian accent, but you may very well confuse an American and a Canadian, whether many of us like it or not.
December 8th, 2005 at 9:24 am
I’m a Montrealer, but I’ve lived in Houston, New Haven, and San Jose. There’s no doubt we have an accent.
I can’t remember where I read it, but a recent linguistic survey concluded that there is a single dialect spoken from Quebec to Victoria. The vast majority of anglophone Canadians speak the same. The Maritimes and Newfoundland are distinct.
But there are also extremely local variations. In Montreal, for example, Jews put a hard G into words where other English-speakers don’t. My shiksa wife laughs at me when I say sinGinG. She says singing, with no hardness on the back of the palate. I can’t glide the word through the “ng” the way she does. It’s definitely a Jewish thing in Montreal, and in Toronto to at least a limited degree.
The wife also laughs at me because I pronounce gas as “gaz” instead of “gass”. Near as I can tell, that’s just me. It’s a French influence, obviously, but my French really sucks, so who knows how I picked it up.
December 8th, 2005 at 11:20 am
Bah. You can’t include those Parma folks, Jon. You have to discount the little old jewish ladies from Beachwood too. The Cincinnati “please” has always cracked me up. The first several times I heard it I was like “please what? Are you asking for something?”
December 8th, 2005 at 12:11 pm
Canadians sound like Americans to me (well, they ARE American). On the rare occations I encounter Canadians I assume they’re from the US; their speech just has this general American overlay. But on the other hand, when I watch Da Vinci’s Inquest I’m aware of the fact that the English spoken is not at all US English. The actors have different accents though; some sound more US than others.
I’ve got such a tin ear that I don’t hear a marked difference between the Ontarian‘sorry’ and the Californian one. I mostly notice the overall difference in clarity, cadence, rhythm and pitch variance.
The typical US American (but probably not typical at all) speaks with lips barely moving. Which is something of a feat, I think. The vowels are kind of flat and veer towards ‘a’ a lot (sari for sorry, ant for aunt). The delivery is also kind of flat. And the eyebrows don’t move at all, they’re like set in stone.
I was in the US once, with my mother, and this guy told me I looked a lot like her. Which I found slightly strange because I don’t look a lot like her. Then he added, You both arch your eyebrows a lot.
We were prolly arching our eyebrows a lot to try to get our mouths around all those w’s. W’s are a bitch.
December 10th, 2005 at 6:12 pm
I live in Ontario and I could have sworn that I never say “aboot”.
But my job involves talking to Americans, only. I talk to Americans from New York to Hawaii on a daily basis. We’re not allowed to say where we are and we have to pretend to be somewhere in the USofA.
So, one day, one of the people I’m talking to on the phone says, “You’re from Canada, aren’t you?” I admitted to having been born there, then asked how he knew.
“You say ‘about’ the way my old, Canadian, room-mate did.”
I still don’t hear it. But he did. That’s sufficient, for me.
December 14th, 2005 at 10:49 am
Hey, sometimes, usually when I’m on a caffeine binge, I will say aboot. And I’m French Canadian. So that’s strange. Whatever, the male writers dig that aboot me.
And I’ll bet James Patrick Joyce (above) is a telemarketer
December 24th, 2005 at 2:33 am
your accent you Americans want the humanity to talk English and in your accent is it a sort of stupidty or what ..?
May 5th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
American English is lazy and stupid and Canadian English is like a beautiful bird in the rain forest.lol
September 22nd, 2006 at 11:58 am
im canadian, i aint gut no accent…well e do a bit…but eh, at least i can speak french, cuz french iz kewl, c ya ’round eh? :P
November 18th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Damn, I wish I could find the article that explains all of this.
A linguist studied the whole “aboot” phenomenon and explains that while Canadians don’t say “aboot” or “aboat” Americans (and Australians) hear it that way. And he revealed why. And it made sense.
Cruising the net I find many non-American foreigners who have lived in Canada for years are just as mystified as Canadians, as they’ve never heard a Canadian say “aboot.” But those foreigners come from non-english speaking nations.
I was able to find this online:
“And yet somehow I am not terribly surprised to find, on the front page of today’s Toronto Star, an article by Oakland Ross, who, having interviewed a few local voice coaches, reveals that Canadians don’t really say ‘oot’ and ‘aboot’. (Ross is, as far as I know, a Canadian himself; he begins the article with the words “Yes, fellow northerners, there is a Canadian accent.â€?)
Well, no, of course we don’t say ‘oot’ and ‘aboot’; Canadians, and other people who have Canadian raising, say [ʌwt] and [əbʌwt]. And while I don’t expect that everyone should know the relevant IPA symbols (although it would be nice if they did), it seems to me that it ought to be perfectly obvious to the Star’s readers how they pronounce these words. I mean, you don’t even have to stand open-mouthed in front of a mirror and count; you just have to listen to yourself (or your neighbour) talk. And I suspect that most Canadians have heard enough Americans talking to realize that the Canadian pronunciation of the word about doesn’t sound very much like the American pronunciation of a boot.
Ross helpfully explains to his predominantly Canadian readers what they really do say:
What Canadians say is “out� and “about� — pretty much the way the words are spelt — but we have a way of forming the vowels toward the front of our mouths and without much vertical space between our upper and lower palates. Americans tend to pronounce the same two words with the sounds formed farther back in their mouths and with more vertical space — something like “ah-out� and “abah-out.�
Ah, yes. It’s all about the ‘lower palate’, which I guess is some kinda fancy scienterrific term for what I’ve always called the ‘tongue’. And apparently the American pronunciation of the word out is disyllabic.”
Yes, there is a Canadian accent. But it’s also misheard by many Americans and Australians. I only wish I could find the explanation for why the Canadian pronounciation of “about” sounds like “aboot” to so many english-speaking non-Canadians.
November 18th, 2006 at 11:11 am
I hate to admit defeat, so I’ve kept looking. I haven’t quite succeeded yet, but here’s something else:
See, in Canadian English (and some dialects of U.S. English that border on Canada), what you get is a pronunciation of the first vowel in the diphthong (diphthong = two vowels smushed together) that is higher up in the mouth when it comes before a voiceless consonant (voiceless = vocal cords not vibrating) as in words like ‘about’, and lower down in the mouth before a voiced consonant as in words like ‘loud’. To American English speakers, the unfamiliar higher (or “raised�) diphthong sounds like a single vowel, and so they perceive it as ‘aboot’.
The phenomenon in question in Canadian English is called Canadian raising by linguists, in case you care (and haven’t fallen asleep yet!). For further reading on the subject, the bibliography at the end of that wikipedia article is quite useful—and I would particularly refer people to the second article listed there, which was written by, cough, a familiar face."
That’s good enough for now. I’ll try again in another year. ;-)
May 27th, 2007 at 1:16 am
As a proud Canadian, and a linguistic purist when it comes to the use of more British spellings (tyre vs. tire, prise vs. pry) and terminology, and the “correct” pronunciation (which doesn’t truly exist, I suppose) of these words, I prefer to be distinguished from American’s in terms of my accent. I find all American English quite lazy and much too simple-minded to use. I sometimes worry when I think of all the American influence places like Toronto get, from the media (though I could not live without the TV series LOST) and a mere proximity to the US border, as more and more youth here are speaking like they were born straight from California.
Although I do not think we say ” a boot”, I do agree with Sam’s description of the Canadian pronunciation as more from the front of the mouth with a smaller space between palates.
Vive l’accent canadien!
June 14th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
I would like to know why we–Canadian here–pronounce “out” and “about” differently than “loud”. Otherwise we would be pronouncing all words containg “ou” in the same way, wouldn’t we?
Say what you want about the American accent, at least it’s consistent.
August 1st, 2007 at 2:04 pm
i swear no prairie-prov canadian says aboot
August 29th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Well, I dont know, on the recording it does sound like she says “ah-boAt”. Now, I was not born in the US (El Salvador, C.A. here), but I have spoken english all my life and my best friend is canadian and I never heard him say “aboot” or “aboat”. but yeah, I was shocked to hear the way she pronounced it. I’ve been in both the U.S. and Canada a lot and because of my job I deal with people from both places all the time, but I really dont find that many differences, except for maybe the word “against” (in canada it’s ‘agAiiiiinst’ and in the US is ‘ag-enst’) but yeah, it’s not something too obvious I think (unless you have someone from the south and a canadian next to each other…you will obviously know who’s from where)
But if you listen very closely and carefully you are in fact able to distinguish a canadian accent (I like it better eh)
December 24th, 2007 at 11:26 am
In the first recording (the one where she talks about (a-boot) her going to school in Windsor. I’m from Windsor! I’ll tell you one thing, Windsor has its own accent due to its being so damn close to the US. Most other Canadians tell me I have an American accent, and Americans tell me I have a Canadian accent. Go figure…..