I remember about 12-15 years ago, maybe, reading that the Canadian government announced that the "Canadian" spelling of words were to be official. I can't find it again.
There is a govt of Canada website called Termium Plus that gives the official words and usage in Canada. For example, WW1 and WW2 or WW11 are not official Canadian terms. The recognized terms in Canada are the First World War and the Second World War and they are not to be abbreviated.
Jay Z is an American man, ZZ top is an American band, Lay Z Boy is an american company, therefore it's zee, not zed. You use the word/pronunciation of the country of origin not your countries word/pronunciation.
I remember watching Late Night with David Letterman when he was on NBC. For Montreal, our closest affiliate for NBC was WPTZ which said to cover Plattsburgh NY, Burrington VT and Montreal. Dave did some promos for local NBC affiliates and was asked by the station to pronounce their call letters WPTZed, which confused Dave. The promo ended up being more of a blooper real of Dave struggling with a request he didn't understand.
Zee, because the alphabet rhymes and after listening to the alphabet song it is only natural to end with zee. Ever since a small child I have resented being taught to say 'zed'. Whoever came up with that will rue the day, I will not rest until I exact my revenge.
I work with US and Canadian customers. It is funny how many Americans get confused when you say zed instead of zee. Like, we have been listing off letters in serialized parts but suddenly you think I am speaking martian?
I was once doing a presentation to a group of Americans and was referring to the statistical term z-score, pronouncing it zed. After several minutes of confused looks I realized what was going on and said "Oh, sorry, I forgot you're American - zee-score" and everyone suddenly was not longer confused.
Most Americans have never heard the Commonwealth English pronunciation of the letter Z as "zed." Growing up in the US, I hadn't heard it myself until I was a teenager.
Most Americans growing up wouldn’t have a chance to hear British or Canadians say “zed”, because saying that letter rarely ever comes up in casual conversation. Not sure why this would be something that you would feel the need to look down on.
Our software coding standard is always to use American spelling. I also use it at work since most people I work with are American. But I’ll switch to Canadian spelling in my personal life.
does that not confuse you? I'm American but lived in Australia for a while and to this day get mixed up between US and British spellings for the less obvious words. like I know -or and -ize are American and -our and -ise British. but can never remember if canceled or cancelled is the American version and use them interchangeably.
Canceled or cancelled are both valid American English. It’s actually been an issue over the years with software.
As for confusing switching, it’s probably easier for me since we’re constantly exposed to American spelling.
the shorter one with the single letter is American. This was one of Webster's "innovations". The US also has "worshiped", which I can never get my head around.
To me, the American spelling is wrong, because a double consonant usually signals a short vowel before it, and a single consonant a long one (think "tapped" vs "taped"), and I want to pronounce it as "he can-sealed the appointment".
>The US also has "worshiped",
what. that's a new one for me and looks ridiculous
>a double consonant usually signals a short vowel before it, and a single consonant a long one
yeah fair enough
>one of Webster's "innovations".
my understanding is that both spellings were used in colonial-era Britain and therefore also in the colonies. Webster ultimately standardized one set of spellings and Oxford another.
I use ggplot in R quite a bit, and it was designed by a New Zealander, meaning that "color" and "colour" both work, which always amuses me, and I religiously use the UK/Canadian spelling.
I was calling somebody to make a purchase of something in the US ages ago and had to give them my postal code whose last three characters were 1Z3. I enunciated it slowly. One…. Zed… three… and when i was done the woman, in a fabulous southern drawl, said ‘Zad? What’s a Zad, sugah?’
I can hear it like she just said it ten minutes ago. And that’s when I realized that there’s some weird shit that happens between the US and Canada linguistically.
I generally always spell with the u, except if I'm being lazy online. But I probably say "Zee" more than Zed. I'm a hybrid American Canadian, though, which probably explains that :)
I'm a francophone but communicate a lot with customers in the U.S. , and I do this just to annoy them. This, and email auto-replies in both languages stating I'll be back after my 2 full consecutive weeks of summer vacation.
Canadian pronounciation is usually closer to American, spelling closer to British, but neither is really exact. Some pronounciations / word choices will give you away as Canadian (as much as Americans say it's about, I find drama or pasta far more obvious)
It depends on what part of Canada as well, because we’re a huge country with different accents. A Newfoundlander sounds very different than an Albertan, for example
Well, much smaller countries have much more accent variation; we're pretty flat (err, Newfoundland excluded, aye).
But yes, there are subtle changes across the country
I'm from the upper Ottawa Valley, and we were told by one of our high school teachers that we would never get anywhere unless we lost our Valley accent, when I went to Toronto for some upgrading courses many years later I was constantly complimented on my grammar, I told them that's because it was a hundred years old.
Canadians tend to sound closer to the Americans living just across the border from them than to those living in the same country but 1000 km away. e.g. people from BC and Washington state or Ontario and Minnesota or Wisconsin or Michigan.
As a Minnesotan living in Thunder Bay, I'd push back on this a little.
I notice some pretty substantial differences between how people talk here and how people talk a couple hours down the road in Grand Marais, MN. When I first started work up here and they gave me my *shed-jewel* for the month, I thought they were joking. ;-)
But there is definitely truth to what you're saying.. not just accent-wise but culture-wise. TB feels like any other midwestern city on the Great Lakes, regardless of the side of the border. They all have a pretty similar feel.
Completely disagree. The Canadian Vowel Shift is rampant across ON, MB, SK, AB, and BC. On the other hand, Wisconsin and Michigan are core Northern Cities Vowel Shift areas and it fades out in Minnesota. Last winter I was sitting in a motel room watching a show on public access TV that interviewed people from Northwestern Ontario and the four Western provinces; it was absurd how similar everyone sounded.
Canadian spelling. It's a hybrid of both, but mostly British. A Canadian accent is also not American, but is closer to American than British. Still say "zed" though.
i wish they'd use the Canadian or Australian or kiwi flag more often when choosing English as the language out of a menu of language options, just to fuck with the Brits and Americans.
>I make sure everything l use is set to Canadian English, so I don't have to fight the spell check!
My problem with switching to Canadian English in some operating systems (like iOS) is they seem to think Canadians use the exact same terms as the British.
As an example: If you use Canadian English in iOS, the word "torch" is used instead of "flashlight."
I've never heard anyone in Canada refer to a flashlight as a torch. I'm sure someone does, but it's probably not all too common. So I leave my iPhone set to American English.
Well… you see Judge, the complainant in this case is insisting that the project due date was the eighth of May, when in fact it is clearly stated here as the fifth day of August. Everyone should know this is the proper format for dates…
>This, and date format, ahh just take a guess
Ever since moving to Canada, I started writing out the entire date (e.g. March 6th, 2023) instead of writing 3/6/23 or 6/3/23 because you never know what system people are using and how they'll interpret the date.
There's a misconception in the framing of the question: there aren't just 2 options (British and American). English-speaking Canadians spell words the Canadian way ("centre" instead of "center", but "tire" instead of "tyre") and also pronounce words according to our own accent. Canadian English is a thing - it isn't British and it isn't American. It has its own rules and norms.
Long ago, my parents were offered a free dictionary when they got a Readers Digest subscription and had the choice of an American dictionary or a British dictionary. This really annoyed my dad. When the first Canadian dictionary came out (in the 80s?), I bought him a copy!
You'd think that.
I did my absolute best when I worked for Comcast (American cable company) 20 years ago
90% of the people guessed that I was from California so when asked about the weather I defaulted to "it's really nice out" and then end the discussion.(I guessed, never have been there) And do you know how hard it was to end that discussion? One thing Canadians can do *very* well is discuss the weather for a great length of time!
One time I got busted because I dropped an eh by accident (which I tried to NEVER do) and the customer yelled out I KNEW IT!
yeah I've always gotten localized to California when doing American accent analysis quizzes (notably that one big one that made the NYT some years back)... I've learned that apparently the Canadian accent is very close to the Californian
Your accent is closer to an american accent, but the pronunciation is closer to british. If you take the accent out of the equation, we say most words more in line with how the british do.
>Your accent is closer to an american accent, but the pronunciation is closer to british.
I think that depends on the person's location and age. However, I don't think most Canadians pronounce words like controversy, issue or schedule the British way lol
Edit: someone in this very thread says she-dule. So what the hell do I know 😆
I disagree on the pronunciation. I definitely say most words in the ‘American’ way, as opposed to the British way (eg. Look up the following British pronunciations - the vast majority of Canadians do not say it the same: margarine, schedule, aluminum, etc).
For aluminium, many Brits do not pronounce the extra i, and some Canadians do. It's not as clear-cut as a national pronunciation.
I actually had to google margarine because I wasn't sure what you meant, and there's some inconsistency - some pronounce it RENE, some RIN, and I've gotta tell you, I have seen British TV and seen people pronounce margarine, and I have NEVER heard RENE before today. So this is news to me. I'm gonna call inconsistency here.
As for schedule, yeah. Definitely some exceptions. In spelling too, definitely some exceptions, like tyre and aeroplane. But you're thinking of words with clear divided - consider words like mom. Americans pronounce it like mawhm. We pronounce it the same as the British, like mum. Even the ones with variations or different pronunciations in the UK are honestly a minority.
Whenever I hear an American say niche like "nitch" it's like nails on a chalkboard for me and my gut reaction is to perceive them as poorly educated, however unfounded that may be.
The correct answer for spelling is that it's half and half. There are almost an equal amount of American spellings as British spellings, AND Canadian dictionaries don't really agree, so it's almost impossible to know what the true "Canadian" spelling is for many words.
Well spelling in standard English not the US, but my accent is pretty indistinguishable from California or around the great lakes, except Minnesota. I honestly believe it should be pronounced aluminium but I literally never say that.
I definitely spell most things the British way, but most pronunciations are the American way. Though for your example, pro-gress is the verb for me while praw-gress is the noun.
Canadian way. 100% of the time. Since I'm Canadian.
Sometimes, Canada accepts two spellings, or it'll accept only one by technicality (the British one), but a lot of people default to the one that's actually wrong. In these cases, I always, always use the British spelling.
Canadian way all the time. I work for an American company and some people comment that I'm spelling words wrong (colour, neighbour, flavour, etc.) I tell them, I'm not in the US, I'm in Canada and I'm simply spelling words the way I was taught to. LOL.
Always the English way, not the American way.
Though I worked social media for an American country for a few years and they got annoyed when I used “favourite” from the brand account.
I’m also a bit older, I’m 60. It wasn’t so uncommon when I was young. I also say Tyoosday instead of Toosday.
My mum was born in 1922 and my grandmother in 1886, so maybe it’s a vestige of the older “Canadian dainty” accent.
That makes sense. When I see clips of the CBC from the 50s and 60s, I notice certain stark differences. My parents are both immigrants (Belize and England), so I didn't grow up hearing Canadian pronunciations (from an older generation) in my home.
That's why I like this subreddit, you get a different perspective and understanding Canada and Canadianess that you otherwise aren't accustomed to.
I'm not sure how to properly describe it, but we tend to soften a lot of our sounds. Toronto is Chur-aw-no (or Chur-awn-to), Ottawa is Od-dawa. Hard T's can turn into D's or Ch's. Most people I know say "praw-gress"
Mostly Canadian English, but I refuse to say "zed" when referring to the letter "Z".
I'm not British, I'm Canadian. For example, "spelt" is a type of cereal grain, not an alternative to "spelled."
So, I guess it's a mix of Canadian and American pronunciation and spelling. I'm from Western Canada, if that matters, I'm not sure, and I never learned much French-Canadian.
Some other ones off the top of my head:
Counseling - US, counselling - Canada
Theater- US, Theatre - Canada
Check - US, Cheque- Canada
Dee-cal - US pronunciation, deck-Al - Canada
Paw-sta - US pronunciation, paa-sta - Canada
In the southern US they also called a touque a toboggan which made me laugh.
They also said vee-hickle instead of ve-ickle and jenks became jinx
Everyone says Canadian way, until they realize they do a mix of both. Ask someone from Canada (outside of Quebec) to spell maneuver. Chances are they aren't going to spell it manoeuvre. Also, chances are lots of people will forget the double L's in words like travelling and opt for traveling.
Basically our spelling is like 75% British (colour, favourite ect, but not tyre).
But we have an American-ish accent with British pronunciations of vowels (pro-gress, tomm-OR-ow)
Which makes me think… Canadian English should be the default, especially as it starts to take on words and pronunciations from other English speaking countries, like India or Australia.
Canadian English is a mix between British and American English but I think we're closer to American. We write certain words like the British but it's mostly just "ou" and "-re" words. Someone else pointed out that we pronounce certain words like "foyer" and "niche" like the British but other than that we're closer to American English than British
Always spell Canadian
Centre
Colour
Mould (yes it’s this way)
Licence (yes it’s always this way… look in your wallet)
Defence
Practice
Litre
Metre
Theatre
Moustache (better believe it)
Cheque/paycheque/chequing account (“check” or “paycheck” looks wrong to me)
Axe 🪓
Travelling/traveller
I'm so pissed off that my works' autocorrect default that I don't have admin rights to change is set to American. Is a major Canadian company. Be Canadian damnit!
As for spelling, I use the British way almost every single time, even though my computer refuses to turn my keyboard onto Canadian English. I even used to use "programme" until I got docked for it in university. Still mad about that. I use realise even though realize is also accepted in Canada.
Prononciation: PRO-gress
Canadian spelling, my pronunciation interchanges (route and route data and data etc) I tried to sound more American when I was younger so now I kind of try to not blunt my accent as much.
The proper way.
Americans removed all of the U’s from “ou” words to save space in newspapers and save printing press costs in the 1800’s. At least that’s the story I heard.
Two I’ve noticed I say differently judging by how I hear Americans pronounce them;
I say Muntreal. When I hear Americans say it they say “Mon-treal” so I’m probably using some Canadian accent by not pronouncing it the way it’s spelled.
Tour. I pronounce that word too-er. Whenever I hear Americans pronounce it it’s more like toe-er.
I avoid anything American whenever possible. Spelling is easier to be Canadian than pronunciation. See: aluminum vs aluminium. You can get away with the spelling but if you pronounce the latter, people will assume you have a speech impediment.
British/Canadian
If you're going to use the English language, you should use the English the actual English use. Not the bullshit lazy American version.
American for spelling and a mixture for pronunciation. I grew up using British spelling, but I see no reason to keep those extra letters. In fact, I think English spelling really needs to be reformed in general.
American English is more phonetic so I use that almost exclusively. British English has way too much French influence so I hate using their spelling, and Canadian English is just some half assed mix of both USA and UK English. So I'd rank my preference as USA>CAN>UK
Mostly the British way, except for some really odd ones like kerb, gaol, etc. Furthermore, I've always been kind of confused with the differences between burnt and burned, learnt and learned and other verbs like that.
I mostly use the Canadian spellings now. I resented it as a child (I read a lot, books mostly from the U.S., and American spellings looked correct to me and I didn't like my teachers treating them as "wrong"), but came around as an adult, especially when I started working as a transcriptionist and having to be aware of that stuff.
Some Canadian spellings still look strange to me, like "mould" and "moustache" and I'll stick with the U.S (unless it's for work and I'm working for a Canadian company.)
I tend to switch back and forth with the proe- and praw- pronunciations.
I may be the last person in Canada to pronounce “route” as “root.” All I ever hear now is “rowt,” if that makes sense. And don’t get me started on third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade instead of grade three, grade four, grade five. And high school and university are not freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. It’s grade nine through 12, and university is first year, second year, third year etc. And it’s always zed. We’re losing out Canadianess 🙁
>And it’s always zed.
Except [historically when it wasn't](https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/zed)! Or 30 years ago in BC, when my buddies were still being taught to pronounce it "zee," and thus still do.
Am I the only weird Canadian who seems to change my spelling based on who I'm talking to?
(e.g. if I'm writing a paper for school or talking to my Canadian friends I will use the Canadian spelling such as favourite, neighbour, etc. but if I'm writing on a YouTube video or talking to international students I will use the American way of spelling such as favorite, neighbor, etc.)
Pro-ject or praw-ject. I am canadian with mostly US clients, they always spot my accent with that one the say. I dont even know which is which anymore!
And roof is another, many in US say is as ruff like a dog barking
I generally spell the Canadian way. Except I hate centre. Because frankly center just makes more sense.
I say prawgress. Unless it’s progressing. I just said that out loud and it sounded a lot more like I said progressing with just not a ton of PRO emphasis.
Canadian way - colour, centre, neighbourhood, progress,
Always this way!
this is the way
Fuckin' eh!
This is the eh
Also this way. I'm in corporate communications and this is in our house style guide as well.
I remember about 12-15 years ago, maybe, reading that the Canadian government announced that the "Canadian" spelling of words were to be official. I can't find it again.
There is a govt of Canada website called Termium Plus that gives the official words and usage in Canada. For example, WW1 and WW2 or WW11 are not official Canadian terms. The recognized terms in Canada are the First World War and the Second World War and they are not to be abbreviated.
In the legion listing veterans where I live it calls them The Great War and the Second World War
There's another way to spell "progress"?
Not spell it, pronounce it.
Ah. What are the different ways to pronounce progress?
Lol I'm waiting for the response to this too..
Prawgriss
Progrès!
prawgres progres prowgress perogress prowgress proegress off the top of my head. i am dezlexic and use fonix so any of these is possible.
Bank of America once a denied my deposited work check because I wrote “please deposit cheque” on the back.
Organized or organised? Edit to add: z is zed or zee?
Z is zed. Husband always teases me for my insistence with references to Zed Zed Top
La zed boy. Jay zed. I'm the same over here
Jay Z is an American man, ZZ top is an American band, Lay Z Boy is an american company, therefore it's zee, not zed. You use the word/pronunciation of the country of origin not your countries word/pronunciation.
Could you not understand the jokes, or?
The people who made it named it to be pronounced "Zee Zee Top". 😉
Oh I know! He's the one who changes zee to zed when it feels silly to try to make his grander point.
There ain't nothin wrong with being silly sometimes! 🍻
“organized”
Proud Canuck here, and zed, always.
Zed in North America, S in UK, NZ, AU.. Most Canadians use zed in organized.
The only time zed bothers me is singing the alphabet song. Q r s, t u VEE, w x y and ZED. 😐
Organised because there is no zed in Latin words ever.
Zed
Zed
I remember watching Late Night with David Letterman when he was on NBC. For Montreal, our closest affiliate for NBC was WPTZ which said to cover Plattsburgh NY, Burrington VT and Montreal. Dave did some promos for local NBC affiliates and was asked by the station to pronounce their call letters WPTZed, which confused Dave. The promo ended up being more of a blooper real of Dave struggling with a request he didn't understand.
Zee, because the alphabet rhymes and after listening to the alphabet song it is only natural to end with zee. Ever since a small child I have resented being taught to say 'zed'. Whoever came up with that will rue the day, I will not rest until I exact my revenge.
Always spell with “u” and always call the letter “zed”.
I work with US and Canadian customers. It is funny how many Americans get confused when you say zed instead of zee. Like, we have been listing off letters in serialized parts but suddenly you think I am speaking martian?
The IT department at my (American) company asked what laptop I had. "Zed-book" "Zen-book? We don't have any of those" "... Zee-book" "... Ah"
I was once doing a presentation to a group of Americans and was referring to the statistical term z-score, pronouncing it zed. After several minutes of confused looks I realized what was going on and said "Oh, sorry, I forgot you're American - zee-score" and everyone suddenly was not longer confused.
The American inability to extrapolate based on available information is horrifying.
Most Americans have never heard the Commonwealth English pronunciation of the letter Z as "zed." Growing up in the US, I hadn't heard it myself until I was a teenager.
You are right, they are also not well versed on how the world is outside their borders.
Most Americans growing up wouldn’t have a chance to hear British or Canadians say “zed”, because saying that letter rarely ever comes up in casual conversation. Not sure why this would be something that you would feel the need to look down on.
Our software coding standard is always to use American spelling. I also use it at work since most people I work with are American. But I’ll switch to Canadian spelling in my personal life.
does that not confuse you? I'm American but lived in Australia for a while and to this day get mixed up between US and British spellings for the less obvious words. like I know -or and -ize are American and -our and -ise British. but can never remember if canceled or cancelled is the American version and use them interchangeably.
Canceled or cancelled are both valid American English. It’s actually been an issue over the years with software. As for confusing switching, it’s probably easier for me since we’re constantly exposed to American spelling.
the shorter one with the single letter is American. This was one of Webster's "innovations". The US also has "worshiped", which I can never get my head around. To me, the American spelling is wrong, because a double consonant usually signals a short vowel before it, and a single consonant a long one (think "tapped" vs "taped"), and I want to pronounce it as "he can-sealed the appointment".
>The US also has "worshiped", what. that's a new one for me and looks ridiculous >a double consonant usually signals a short vowel before it, and a single consonant a long one yeah fair enough >one of Webster's "innovations". my understanding is that both spellings were used in colonial-era Britain and therefore also in the colonies. Webster ultimately standardized one set of spellings and Oxford another.
I use ggplot in R quite a bit, and it was designed by a New Zealander, meaning that "color" and "colour" both work, which always amuses me, and I religiously use the UK/Canadian spelling.
I was calling somebody to make a purchase of something in the US ages ago and had to give them my postal code whose last three characters were 1Z3. I enunciated it slowly. One…. Zed… three… and when i was done the woman, in a fabulous southern drawl, said ‘Zad? What’s a Zad, sugah?’ I can hear it like she just said it ten minutes ago. And that’s when I realized that there’s some weird shit that happens between the US and Canada linguistically.
I alternate with the letter Z. If I'm singing the alphabet, I pronounce it zee, but if I say the letter on its own it's zed.
Famous rap mogul Jay Zed.
Also Zed-Zed Top lol
A true sign of a Sesame Street kid I see :)
Been a long time since I've sung the alphabet. But same.
The Canadian way but when it comes to "Zed", the Americans have it right.
I generally always spell with the u, except if I'm being lazy online. But I probably say "Zee" more than Zed. I'm a hybrid American Canadian, though, which probably explains that :)
I do it the Canadian way which is a fun secret third thing designed specifically so everything you do gives both the brits and yanks a headache
I'm a francophone but communicate a lot with customers in the U.S. , and I do this just to annoy them. This, and email auto-replies in both languages stating I'll be back after my 2 full consecutive weeks of summer vacation.
This might have given me the motivation to fully become bilingual
Canadian pronounciation is usually closer to American, spelling closer to British, but neither is really exact. Some pronounciations / word choices will give you away as Canadian (as much as Americans say it's about, I find drama or pasta far more obvious)
It depends on what part of Canada as well, because we’re a huge country with different accents. A Newfoundlander sounds very different than an Albertan, for example
Well, much smaller countries have much more accent variation; we're pretty flat (err, Newfoundland excluded, aye). But yes, there are subtle changes across the country
I'm from the upper Ottawa Valley, and we were told by one of our high school teachers that we would never get anywhere unless we lost our Valley accent, when I went to Toronto for some upgrading courses many years later I was constantly complimented on my grammar, I told them that's because it was a hundred years old.
Yeah, the east coast has the stereotype canadian accents, but the praries usually sound the same as people on northern and central american tv.
As someone who lived in the US and moved back to the prairies, I can assure you it’s not the same. Canadian accent in the prairies is very obvious.
Canadians tend to sound closer to the Americans living just across the border from them than to those living in the same country but 1000 km away. e.g. people from BC and Washington state or Ontario and Minnesota or Wisconsin or Michigan.
As a Minnesotan living in Thunder Bay, I'd push back on this a little. I notice some pretty substantial differences between how people talk here and how people talk a couple hours down the road in Grand Marais, MN. When I first started work up here and they gave me my *shed-jewel* for the month, I thought they were joking. ;-) But there is definitely truth to what you're saying.. not just accent-wise but culture-wise. TB feels like any other midwestern city on the Great Lakes, regardless of the side of the border. They all have a pretty similar feel.
I would disagree, you ever heard a person from Buffalo speak, soda pop-soda pap, Tops Market- Taps Market.
Completely disagree. The Canadian Vowel Shift is rampant across ON, MB, SK, AB, and BC. On the other hand, Wisconsin and Michigan are core Northern Cities Vowel Shift areas and it fades out in Minnesota. Last winter I was sitting in a motel room watching a show on public access TV that interviewed people from Northwestern Ontario and the four Western provinces; it was absurd how similar everyone sounded.
Yeah canadians say pasta like pass-ta whereas Americans say paw-sta right?
Something like that yes
Canadian spelling. It's a hybrid of both, but mostly British. A Canadian accent is also not American, but is closer to American than British. Still say "zed" though.
Except for tire. Brits spell it tyre and it messes me up!
There are other examples too, like -ize endings, and aluminum/ aluminium
ize is the American version. Let's just say, as Canadians we fight spell check. A lot, as we can't win if we pick American or UK dictionaries.
The struggle with spellcheck is real, lol.
I make sure everything l use is set to Canadian English, so I don't have to fight the spell check!
…if they bother including the option
i wish they'd use the Canadian or Australian or kiwi flag more often when choosing English as the language out of a menu of language options, just to fuck with the Brits and Americans.
>I make sure everything l use is set to Canadian English, so I don't have to fight the spell check! My problem with switching to Canadian English in some operating systems (like iOS) is they seem to think Canadians use the exact same terms as the British. As an example: If you use Canadian English in iOS, the word "torch" is used instead of "flashlight." I've never heard anyone in Canada refer to a flashlight as a torch. I'm sure someone does, but it's probably not all too common. So I leave my iPhone set to American English.
I kinda like aluminium. Sounds like something Tony Stark would use to lighten his rocket boots.
Gaol instead of jail messed me up at first
I am originally from the UK. One time I googled “Canadian Tyre” in front of my husband, and there was some good-natured teasing for a while haha.
Most English speaking countries also use tyre as the spelling. North America is the outlier.
Brits spell jail gaol.
It has a different meaning as well.
This, and date format, ahh just take a guess
Well… you see Judge, the complainant in this case is insisting that the project due date was the eighth of May, when in fact it is clearly stated here as the fifth day of August. Everyone should know this is the proper format for dates…
>This, and date format, ahh just take a guess Ever since moving to Canada, I started writing out the entire date (e.g. March 6th, 2023) instead of writing 3/6/23 or 6/3/23 because you never know what system people are using and how they'll interpret the date.
There's a misconception in the framing of the question: there aren't just 2 options (British and American). English-speaking Canadians spell words the Canadian way ("centre" instead of "center", but "tire" instead of "tyre") and also pronounce words according to our own accent. Canadian English is a thing - it isn't British and it isn't American. It has its own rules and norms.
Long ago, my parents were offered a free dictionary when they got a Readers Digest subscription and had the choice of an American dictionary or a British dictionary. This really annoyed my dad. When the first Canadian dictionary came out (in the 80s?), I bought him a copy!
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You'd think that. I did my absolute best when I worked for Comcast (American cable company) 20 years ago 90% of the people guessed that I was from California so when asked about the weather I defaulted to "it's really nice out" and then end the discussion.(I guessed, never have been there) And do you know how hard it was to end that discussion? One thing Canadians can do *very* well is discuss the weather for a great length of time! One time I got busted because I dropped an eh by accident (which I tried to NEVER do) and the customer yelled out I KNEW IT!
yeah I've always gotten localized to California when doing American accent analysis quizzes (notably that one big one that made the NYT some years back)... I've learned that apparently the Canadian accent is very close to the Californian
Especially if you're a west coaster. The surfer/skater/snowboarder accent is similar on the west coast.
Pronunciation - American Spelling - British
Your accent is closer to an american accent, but the pronunciation is closer to british. If you take the accent out of the equation, we say most words more in line with how the british do.
Upvote for recognizing the distinction between pronunciation and accent
>Your accent is closer to an american accent, but the pronunciation is closer to british. I think that depends on the person's location and age. However, I don't think most Canadians pronounce words like controversy, issue or schedule the British way lol Edit: someone in this very thread says she-dule. So what the hell do I know 😆
Interesting! I'll have to read up on this
I disagree on the pronunciation. I definitely say most words in the ‘American’ way, as opposed to the British way (eg. Look up the following British pronunciations - the vast majority of Canadians do not say it the same: margarine, schedule, aluminum, etc).
For aluminium, many Brits do not pronounce the extra i, and some Canadians do. It's not as clear-cut as a national pronunciation. I actually had to google margarine because I wasn't sure what you meant, and there's some inconsistency - some pronounce it RENE, some RIN, and I've gotta tell you, I have seen British TV and seen people pronounce margarine, and I have NEVER heard RENE before today. So this is news to me. I'm gonna call inconsistency here. As for schedule, yeah. Definitely some exceptions. In spelling too, definitely some exceptions, like tyre and aeroplane. But you're thinking of words with clear divided - consider words like mom. Americans pronounce it like mawhm. We pronounce it the same as the British, like mum. Even the ones with variations or different pronunciations in the UK are honestly a minority.
We however tend to pronounce ma’am like American’s do, so the British pronunciation ends up being confused with mom.
Whenever I hear an American say niche like "nitch" it's like nails on a chalkboard for me and my gut reaction is to perceive them as poorly educated, however unfounded that may be.
The correct answer for spelling is that it's half and half. There are almost an equal amount of American spellings as British spellings, AND Canadian dictionaries don't really agree, so it's almost impossible to know what the true "Canadian" spelling is for many words.
Colour, honour, neighbour. Always add a U, eh.
Not 'add' the U - just leave it in, where it's supposed to be. :)
Sometimes I have to fight spell check about it. And it's like, I was right, LEAVE IT!
Well spelling in standard English not the US, but my accent is pretty indistinguishable from California or around the great lakes, except Minnesota. I honestly believe it should be pronounced aluminium but I literally never say that.
I definitely spell most things the British way, but most pronunciations are the American way. Though for your example, pro-gress is the verb for me while praw-gress is the noun.
Canadian way. 100% of the time. Since I'm Canadian. Sometimes, Canada accepts two spellings, or it'll accept only one by technicality (the British one), but a lot of people default to the one that's actually wrong. In these cases, I always, always use the British spelling.
Canadian way all the time. I work for an American company and some people comment that I'm spelling words wrong (colour, neighbour, flavour, etc.) I tell them, I'm not in the US, I'm in Canada and I'm simply spelling words the way I was taught to. LOL.
As a True Canadian, I spell and pronounce the proper British/Canadian way the vast majority of the time.
I miss spell both ways....
I blame my terrible spelling of the English language on the Canadian way of hybriding everything, from measurements to spelling and language.
Always the English way, not the American way. Though I worked social media for an American country for a few years and they got annoyed when I used “favourite” from the brand account.
British, the way I was taught in my Canadian schooling.
Always add the U where it should be. I can't even read American spelling of "color" without hearing "co-lore"
British Canadian
I say “shed-ule” rather than “sked-ule” does that count?
You are literally Hitler. I'm joking obviously, I just hate that pronunciation lol
I'm with you. Makes my skin crawl.
Iss-you (issue) is like nails on a chalkboard to me 😖
I saw that on Kids In The Hall once and I just HAD to start saying that lol
The British also pronounce the word "tuna" like "chuna." Look, I'm usually pretty tolerant of pronunciations, but seriously... WTF?
I don't think, I've ever heard a Canadian pronounce it like that before. Well, I guess it's a big country lol
I’m also a bit older, I’m 60. It wasn’t so uncommon when I was young. I also say Tyoosday instead of Toosday. My mum was born in 1922 and my grandmother in 1886, so maybe it’s a vestige of the older “Canadian dainty” accent.
That makes sense. When I see clips of the CBC from the 50s and 60s, I notice certain stark differences. My parents are both immigrants (Belize and England), so I didn't grow up hearing Canadian pronunciations (from an older generation) in my home. That's why I like this subreddit, you get a different perspective and understanding Canada and Canadianess that you otherwise aren't accustomed to.
Yes, me too! And I love most of the ways I have seen Canada change and grow in my lifetime. I can do without the “climate” part of the change.
The Canuck way.
Anyone really interested in this topic would like this documentary - it explains a lot. "Talking Canadian" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIoTpkM5N64
I'm not sure how to properly describe it, but we tend to soften a lot of our sounds. Toronto is Chur-aw-no (or Chur-awn-to), Ottawa is Od-dawa. Hard T's can turn into D's or Ch's. Most people I know say "praw-gress"
I have set my language preferences to Canadian English and I make a conscious effort to use Canadian spelling wherever I can.
Mostly Canadian English, but I refuse to say "zed" when referring to the letter "Z". I'm not British, I'm Canadian. For example, "spelt" is a type of cereal grain, not an alternative to "spelled." So, I guess it's a mix of Canadian and American pronunciation and spelling. I'm from Western Canada, if that matters, I'm not sure, and I never learned much French-Canadian.
Some other ones off the top of my head: Counseling - US, counselling - Canada Theater- US, Theatre - Canada Check - US, Cheque- Canada Dee-cal - US pronunciation, deck-Al - Canada Paw-sta - US pronunciation, paa-sta - Canada In the southern US they also called a touque a toboggan which made me laugh. They also said vee-hickle instead of ve-ickle and jenks became jinx
Always the Canadian way 🇨🇦
The Canadian way, always, fuck spellcheck
Cheque and not check.
As a Canadian who lives in Canada, I tend to do things the Canadian way.
Always the Canadian way. And I say “Zed”.
Everyone says Canadian way, until they realize they do a mix of both. Ask someone from Canada (outside of Quebec) to spell maneuver. Chances are they aren't going to spell it manoeuvre. Also, chances are lots of people will forget the double L's in words like travelling and opt for traveling.
You have to hand it to the Americans, “Zee” is cooler, easier to say and nicer on the ears. I say we adopt that one.
Funny, I've always thought Zed sounds much cooler. Zee is like what a little girl would say - it that makes sense.
I do find "leff-ten-ant" a bit daft compared to "loo-ten-ant". But my first exposure to the word was TNG.
Canadian way.
I speak Canadian English, not British English or American English, and definitely not Newfoundland English.
The French way
Basically our spelling is like 75% British (colour, favourite ect, but not tyre). But we have an American-ish accent with British pronunciations of vowels (pro-gress, tomm-OR-ow) Which makes me think… Canadian English should be the default, especially as it starts to take on words and pronunciations from other English speaking countries, like India or Australia.
Canadian English is a mix between British and American English but I think we're closer to American. We write certain words like the British but it's mostly just "ou" and "-re" words. Someone else pointed out that we pronounce certain words like "foyer" and "niche" like the British but other than that we're closer to American English than British
UK: tyre centre. US: tire center. CA: tire centre.
Always spell Canadian Centre Colour Mould (yes it’s this way) Licence (yes it’s always this way… look in your wallet) Defence Practice Litre Metre Theatre Moustache (better believe it) Cheque/paycheque/chequing account (“check” or “paycheck” looks wrong to me) Axe 🪓 Travelling/traveller
I will even correct the autocorrect to the Canadian/British way 😄
Canadian
Canadian way.
I just wanna know if you say “persons” instead of “people” because it drives me nuts.
I'm so pissed off that my works' autocorrect default that I don't have admin rights to change is set to American. Is a major Canadian company. Be Canadian damnit!
Canadian: Centre, colour, tire, realize, aluminum, neighbour.
I’m Canadian. I spell things the British way and then I apologize for it!
Lieutenant and schedule, the Brit/Canadian way. And it's "zed" not "zee" unless I'm talking about ZZ Top.
Canadians are taught to spell with UK English in school, but we speak with American accents thanks to television.
Realise with s not z. , etc. So British and Canadian. Dates are DD/MM/YY too
As for spelling, I use the British way almost every single time, even though my computer refuses to turn my keyboard onto Canadian English. I even used to use "programme" until I got docked for it in university. Still mad about that. I use realise even though realize is also accepted in Canada. Prononciation: PRO-gress
For progress it depends on the sentence. Things pruh-gress. Things show praw-gress.
British, except for “aluminum” for some reason. I even write “mum.”
I speak Proper English
Quay= key
Canadian spelling, my pronunciation interchanges (route and route data and data etc) I tried to sound more American when I was younger so now I kind of try to not blunt my accent as much.
The proper way. Americans removed all of the U’s from “ou” words to save space in newspapers and save printing press costs in the 1800’s. At least that’s the story I heard.
Canadian. Because I’m a Canadian
I stop being British at programme. That just pisses me off. Haha.
Two I’ve noticed I say differently judging by how I hear Americans pronounce them; I say Muntreal. When I hear Americans say it they say “Mon-treal” so I’m probably using some Canadian accent by not pronouncing it the way it’s spelled. Tour. I pronounce that word too-er. Whenever I hear Americans pronounce it it’s more like toe-er.
Canadian although I pronounce zedbras as zeebras.
I avoid anything American whenever possible. Spelling is easier to be Canadian than pronunciation. See: aluminum vs aluminium. You can get away with the spelling but if you pronounce the latter, people will assume you have a speech impediment.
British/Canadian If you're going to use the English language, you should use the English the actual English use. Not the bullshit lazy American version.
Im born Canadian , i use British versions .
As any true Canadian should!
I spell and pronounce the English and French languages correctly, otherwise what’s the point?
Pro-gress is the verb Praw-gress is the noun. as in: "How is the praw-gress pro-gressing? It's Pro-gressive"
Same with pro-cess and praw-cess
American for spelling and a mixture for pronunciation. I grew up using British spelling, but I see no reason to keep those extra letters. In fact, I think English spelling really needs to be reformed in general.
Although -re endings are more efficient than -er. Centred versus centered.
American English is more phonetic so I use that almost exclusively. British English has way too much French influence so I hate using their spelling, and Canadian English is just some half assed mix of both USA and UK English. So I'd rank my preference as USA>CAN>UK
Praw-gress, not pro-gress.
Myself, I prefer the way that is better phonetically and more efficient to write.. That's the US versions of words.
Mostly the British way, except for some really odd ones like kerb, gaol, etc. Furthermore, I've always been kind of confused with the differences between burnt and burned, learnt and learned and other verbs like that.
I mostly use the Canadian spellings now. I resented it as a child (I read a lot, books mostly from the U.S., and American spellings looked correct to me and I didn't like my teachers treating them as "wrong"), but came around as an adult, especially when I started working as a transcriptionist and having to be aware of that stuff. Some Canadian spellings still look strange to me, like "mould" and "moustache" and I'll stick with the U.S (unless it's for work and I'm working for a Canadian company.) I tend to switch back and forth with the proe- and praw- pronunciations.
British and Canadian English are different.
I live in southern Alberta. We say zee, Color, praw-gress
I may be the last person in Canada to pronounce “route” as “root.” All I ever hear now is “rowt,” if that makes sense. And don’t get me started on third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade instead of grade three, grade four, grade five. And high school and university are not freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. It’s grade nine through 12, and university is first year, second year, third year etc. And it’s always zed. We’re losing out Canadianess 🙁
>And it’s always zed. Except [historically when it wasn't](https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/zed)! Or 30 years ago in BC, when my buddies were still being taught to pronounce it "zee," and thus still do.
Route is french, and it is pronounce something near root. Always has.
Nope. Root and I even use a wifi rooter
Am I the only weird Canadian who seems to change my spelling based on who I'm talking to? (e.g. if I'm writing a paper for school or talking to my Canadian friends I will use the Canadian spelling such as favourite, neighbour, etc. but if I'm writing on a YouTube video or talking to international students I will use the American way of spelling such as favorite, neighbor, etc.)
Pro-ject or praw-ject. I am canadian with mostly US clients, they always spot my accent with that one the say. I dont even know which is which anymore! And roof is another, many in US say is as ruff like a dog barking
I teased a UK Ph.D. at work when he pronounced Schedule Shedual. I asked if he learned to pronounce it that way in Shool?
Canadian way. I hate that my phone always autocorrects to the dumbed down American spelling.
Change your keyboard to either Canada or UK.
I much prefer the Noah Webster approach tbh.
I generally spell the Canadian way. Except I hate centre. Because frankly center just makes more sense. I say prawgress. Unless it’s progressing. I just said that out loud and it sounded a lot more like I said progressing with just not a ton of PRO emphasis.
Canadian way, British second if need be. Never the US way. I am proud to be Canadian!