Been There, Done That

I am darn proud to be Canadian, but I will swear up and down that I do not have a Canadian accent. Actually, I didn't even believe there was such a thing as a Canadian accent until I met this guy from Vancouver that sounded like he was from Fargo, North Dakota. So maybe people who hail from the west have a "Canadian accent", but certainly not folks from the east, and especially not those from the great city of Toronto. We, Torontonians have a neutral North American accent, similar to Californians. That's what I tell myself anyway.

I've tried very hard to eliminate the last remnants of any Canadian spelling and pronounciation from my vocabulary. It took me forever to get used to saying "PROE-gress" as opposed to "PRAW-gress". I thought I was doing rather well until the end of a meeting I had last week. As the host shook my hand he asked, "You're Canadian, right?" Now I know it wasn't because he noticed I was wearing an iron ring (most Americans think it's a friendship ring) so it must have been something I said. At first he wouldn't tell me what it was. Then I asked, "Is it the way I pronounce the word 'been'?" Bingo. Take the sentence, "I've been there." Americans pronounce it "I've BIN there" while Canadians say "I've BEAN there".

The other thing that gives me away is how I pronounce the letter "z". Americans say "zee". I prefer "zed" and I've used that pronounciation since my days in Hong Kong when my accent was mildly British... according to my sister anyway.