Beth Benoit wrote: > > How funny, Chris. You must be right on. Our friends are from > Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Now that's a-WAY up there. Nice gold mine.
"There is a town in North Ontario-o-oh!" - Neil Young :-) Chris =========== > Beth Benoit > > On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 10:31 AM, Christopher D. Green > <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: > > > Allen Esterson wrote: >> On 4 April 2008 Beth Benoit wrote [snip]: >> >>> I have friends from Canada who say "aboot," "hoose" (for house). >>> >> Don't know if this is relevant to Canada, but it sounds like Scottish >> English, as in the well know 'saying', "There's a moose loose aboot the >> hoose" >> >> > Yes, Allen, it is almost certainly of Scots origin. Scots were the > dominant ethnic group in English Canada for long while (just look > at the names of the early Prime Ministers). But the sound is not > really "oo." It is subtle and hard to render phonetically. It is > just a slightly "tenser" (to use the linguistic term) "ou" (or > "ow") than the very "lax" (again, to use the linguistic term) > American version of the same sound (and almost all other vowel > sounds). For Americans, if you set your lips like you were about > to say "oh" and then say "ow" through that apature, you get about > the right sound. But it is not universal across Canada. You hear > it now in some parts of "old" rural and small town Canada > (northern Ontario, parts of the Ottawa valley and back to > Kingston, the farmlands of the prairies), and even in those > places, it is not universal. I almost never hear it in and around > Toronto, nor did I hear it much when I lived in Montreal (and it > was still "legal" to speak English on the street) and Vancouver. > It is rapidly dying out, the "victim" of massive immigration into > Canada (42% of Toronto is now made up of "visible minorities") and > of imported TV and movies from the US. > > Chris > -- > > Christopher D. Green > Department of Psychology > York University > Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 > Canada > > > > 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ > > --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])