camwyn | (no subject)

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Got to watch another Due South episode last night. I got past the "AAAAAH I'M DOOMED" part fairly early on and spent most of the episode going 'squee!', with the occasional bout of 'that animal is about as much of a wolf as I am'. Also wrinkling my nose a lot at the female lead's excessive hair and makeup.

On a semi-related note, my calendar this year appears to have pretty much every Canadian holiday in addition to the American ones. Also quite a lot of Mexican holidays. This was not done on purpose; I bought it because it was on sale for $4, and it was all German shepherds, and one does not get fussy about which breed of dog is on one's calendar when one is shopping for calendars at the $4 price point. It did, however, pay off in one regard. Lacking any particular reason to choose any other day, I picked 25 February 1873 as Sergeant Preston's birthday. According to my calendar, 25 February is Yukon Heritage Day.

It seemed appropriate.

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Oh, I figured it was pretty clear that Dief wasn't really deaf as soon as I saw Fraser call his name and he responded despite looking the other way. And being several yards away, on a concrete surface that couldn't have transferred any kind of 'come here, please' foot-stompy vibrations. I assumed Dief was just being headstrong.

olna_jenn says she saw a fanfic once where Ray (I forget which) figured that Dief wasn't being difficult so much as he was assuming that he, Dief, was pack alpha... since out of him, Fraser, and Ray, only Dief was getting any. Which is as good an explanation as any.

*snickers* It's very true. Ray and Fraser are hopeless.

Also, I started saying 'thank you kindly' without even realizing it after watching this show every day for a week straight. I said it at work and someone pointed out that I sounded like "that mountie on that show" before I even realized that I had begun saying it. I pay more attention now and started to realize just how Canadian it is to say that. It's hilarious.

That's the thing, see. I always did that. Along with- well, I don't get people's names off their shirts or mailboxes, because I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable because a stranger knows too much about them, but I address people I don't know as 'sir' or 'ma'am' nine-tenths of the time. That really seems to catch people off guard.

Also my co-workers rib me for spelling it 'colour' but that's their problem.

I always call strangers sir or ma'am. Is that a Canadian thing? Mind you, I have the tendency to be ridiculously polite - very Canadian of me, although definitely not something everyone does. The majority of us are jerks.

You spell it the right way. ;) Good for you.

It's not a common thing in this country outside of the South, where they put a bit more emphasis on manners than here in the Northeast or out in Ohio. (I can't really vouch for the middle of the country, beyond the fact that the Southerners who worked for the Red Cross were very appreciative of me using 'sir' and 'ma'am' when we met on a flood relief operation in Wisconsin.)

I actually started using the 'u' spellings long before I got interested in Canada. Back in... mmm, high school, I think... I started adopting a number of British spellings because I'd read the James Herriot books once too often, and because I'd seen Chariots of Fire. I liked the little fillip of difference it gave my writing. I never adopted the changed spellings wholesale, but I've got just enough difference from American standard written English to stand out.

Do you say "zed" or "zee" though?

Zee, and believe me, I'm aware that this is not a particularly Canadian thing. See item nine on my list. I am told that whether you say 'zee' or 'zed' varies based on what your schoolteachers were like, but my friend

mountainspeak always pronounces it 'zed', and of course there is Joe's rant, so...

Here again, southern girl talking--I say "Thankyoukindly" ALL THE TIME since I started watching dueSouth; it only added 'kindly' to what i say anyway. "Sir" and "Ma'am" also are ingrained habit. We get a lot of northern transplants who don't use the honorifics, and it is unfortunately falling out of favor with kids EVERYWHERE. (I blame TV, and its blandifying of our regional differences, but that's a totally different rant.)

But my mom would have tanned my hide for being less than polite to a stranger growing up, and it sorta stuck.

(if it helps any, I use Brit spellings a lot of the time too. {grin})

Me, I picked up the 'sir' and 'ma'am' after working in a drugstore between sophomore and junior years at university. It's stood me in very good stead. On the few occasions when I'm mistaken for something other than Canadian, it's almost inevitably a Southerner, and when that happens it is always because of the 'sir' and 'ma'am'. (Well, that and because when I get tired I am not always careful about my tendency to match the speech pattern or accent of the person I am talking to.)

oh, i'm so glad i'm not the only one who does that....

The accent matching got a little weird when I was in Rowlesburg, W. Va. That's holler country, where they've got to pipe in the daylight. I wound up talking to a farmer there and completely failed to realise I was matching his accent and speech pattern until one of the other people I was traveling with asked me why I did that. I've noticed that tendency since.

I've got friends who get tickled as anything when my accent swerves way into the country, as it does whenever I'm talking to people whose families have been here since forever. My mom used to do it, and I'd laugh at her for using a phrase like "Ain't seen you in a coon's age!" ...I've recently had to apologize, as i do the EXACT same thing.

I think my eventual goal is to make it impossible for people to tell where I'm from based on my speech, if only because I've filed off most (but not all) of the regional 'tells' one gets from living in NYC to age 11, then added 'tells' from sufficient other English-speaking areas of the country and the world to balance the remaining ones out.

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