I'm predicting this will be one of the coolest forums on DU

[HEyHEY]

And I'm sure we'll all be spending a lot of time here hiding out from those CRAZY americans!

[Hawkeye-X]

1. Nah.

We 'Murkans are going be a-hunting you Canucks with our M-16 assault rifle.

*cackle*

Hawkeye-X

[libhill]

5. By golly-

that's right, cuz our great leader might just decide that Cannucks are hidin' that thar Osammy feller, what joined up with Saydamn Hoosane to bomb New York with them thar A-bombs he has hid somewheres. An' everone knowed them Cannukians wanna take our guns, an' make our women folk get them A-bortions. And get our old 'uns to come up thar an' buy them cheap medicines, what ain't no good no how.

[MikeG]

2. Maybe one of the coldest given the location.

[roguevalley]

12. ALASKA IS COLD!!!! CAN I COME HERE TOO?!?!? Actually, when I try

and use the international operators, they always route me to Canada because too many people believe that Alaska is part of Canada. I don't mind actually. My grandma and aunts and most of my Dad's family are Canadian. :)

[ilovenicepeople]

22. 54-40 or fight

You can keep the pan we just want the handle back! (just kidding?):hi:

[dancing kali]

15. Yep

the glacier starts at the 49th parallel and we all live in igloos.

[MikeG]

16. Come to Pittsburgh - I'll show you frigging igloos.

[dancing kali]

19. Born and raised there

left in 1981. Go back every year to see the folks. Don't miss the winters. . . do miss the leaves in the fall.

[JVS]

31. PITTSBURGH RULES!

[PittPoliSci]

35. gonna show him the Civic Arena?

I refuse to call it hte Mellon Arena, never will.

[Interrobang]

17. Speak for yourself!

It's gotta be 30C here today. For you non-metric folks, that's probably something like 90F. Cold?! Yeesh. I'm at the same latitude as central Oregon!

HeyHey, Coolest Forum. Evar!!

[iverglas]

20. and the humidity

It was 100% when I woke up this morning. How is that even fucking possible!?! And why hasn't it rained today ... again?!?

I think it was only supposed to go up to 26 here -- which is just under 80F (30C is 86F) -- but you add in that humidex, and it's disgusting.

Now somebody from Alberta has to say "but it's a dry cold" ...

[iverglas]

3. wellll

I have to say that the big reason for being at DU, from my own perspective, is to give all them some perspective, which most of 'em are sorely lacking.

No point in debating the ethics of Liberals while tucked away in here with no yanks looking on. If we're going to argue things like that among ourselves (or health care policy, or any other burning local issue), that's better done where there are actual Canadians watching!

[Parrcrow]

4. We don't have to worry about seeming smug in here

and we don't have to worry about the fact that Stephen Harper is Canada's secret shame.

[Spazito]

8. LOL Did you catch the pic on the news of him in his leather vest...

what the hell was that? Uuuuuggggly!

[libhill]

30. Actually,

Canadians don't strike me as smug at all. You guys have a great nation and a great system, don't let wing nut maniacs fuck it up like we did here. We could never ask for a better neighbor than Canada. Too bad you folks can't say the same of us.

[k in IA]

6. I just heard O'Liely is boycotting this forum and it is going to bankrupt

DU.

[HEyHEY]

9. Ack! This forum better fall in line!

[Parrcrow]

10. I've got two threads going on the Media thread about this jerk. n/t

[1monster]

7. Come this winter, that may be something of an understatement...

}(

[lastknowngood]

11. Hey hosers why isn't it called the great white north forum?

n/t

[HEyHEY]

13. Or, "The great white forum"

[Spazito]

14. I guess we have to say goodbye to this guy now that Molson has...

gone Coors. :(

http://www.coolcanuckaward.ca/joe_canadian.htm

[HEyHEY]

21. New slogan "I WAS CANADIAN!"

Maybe Molson sould move to Kansas and get jobs in the aircraft industry.

[MikeG]

18. Yah hey dere, how bout dem dere Canucks yah hey.

[HEyHEY]

23. Norwegian?

;-)

[MikeG]

24. It's how yunz sound.

[MikeG]

25. Pittsburghers sound like Dennis Hopper.

[HEyHEY]

26. It how some sound

Mainly the blue collar workin' stiffs...or people from the Ottawa valley or the rural areas.....but US city folk rarely sound that way. We're more like....... Seattle types without the US drawl.

[MikeG]

27. Good to know. We hear it mainly from hockey players.

[iverglas]

28. ah, the Valley!

G'day g'day. Thiynks, and I'll be goin to the biynk, now.

(Can't ever figure out how to spell "bank" so it will be pronounced to rhyme with "bind" ... "bink" just doesn't do it, and it isn't quite "boink" ... we have ways of writing "ink" and "ank" and "unk", but not "ine-k", and doing it that way loses the "nk" sound ...)

USAmericans really do hear that "oot" sound. Did you ever see the Toronto tourism ad, with the weather guys up in a chopper over a beautiful blue Lake Ontario, and one of them talking about his weekend plans ... to which the other replies "so you're going out and about in a boat, eh?" ... and you could just envisage all the folks on the other side of the border falling on the floor in merriment, all the while you didn't get the joke.

Newsworld showed this a couple of times this spring:
http://www.cbc.ca/canadianexperience/talkingcanadian/
(part of The Canadian Experience
http://www.cbc.ca/canadianexperience/schedule.html)
and it did explain a lot of the differences. In fact, we talk more like New Englanders did 2 centuries ago, because when the pushy UELs (United Empire Loyalists, called "traitors" elsewhere, I believe) came north they spread their own dialect here.

A lot of the differences have to do with how far back in the mouth/throat vowels originate. The hideous upstate New York accent is an extreme example of the progression -- their vowels are all right up near the front of the mouth (not to say in their nose), as when "my" PBS station urges me to send in my da-lers (as compared to my dah-lers). Canadians still tend to harbour their vowels a little farther back, although not as far back as some NYCers, who speak an older dialect, and still distinguish between "cot" and "caught", for instance.

[Interrobang]

37. Hey, that's my line!

Actually, Iverglas, Canadian vowels are very *high,* ie. to the front of the mouth. The Great Vowel Shift never stopped happening here. :) That's why most of our vowels are actually diphthongs, and why we have that schwa in "about" and other words, you know, the one that gives Americans such a terrible allophone problem. :)

Have you seen the page on "Canadian Raising" yet?

http://www.yorku.ca/twainweb/troberts/raising.html

Enjoy!

[HEyHEY]

29. SHould we send a "Governor General" to the U.K. Forum?

[Canuckistanian]

32. No, they'll send one to us!

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. But first we have to wait for a German forum

so we can pick our joint monarch ;-)

[iverglas]

34. no no no

We pick our own (or, well, we elect somebody to do it), and we give her a fancy title, and then we pretend that they picked her over there in that forum, and then we pretend that she's doing what they tell her over there to do, or at least what the one whom they found under a rock or something, and whom they pretend is their own bigger one of the same, tells her to do, and we pretend that we do what ours tells us to do, and then we all get together and snicker and point behind the backs of everybody who thinks (or pretends to think) that it's all very important and tells us we're all boot-licking sheep, and we say "George W. Bush" really loud and burst out laughing ...

The intricacies of parliamentary democracy in a constitutional monarchy in an ex-empire, concisely explained.

[Lautremont]

36. All I know is,

now I have to choose a new avatar.