Recently, I've been catching some crap for how I talk. That's nothing new--in second grade (up here they call it "Grade 2"), my friends coached me to speak properly. I learned to say the word "borrow" as "BAH-roe" instead of "BORE-oh," and "tomorrow" became "to-MAH-roe" instead of "to-MORE-oh." According to these Oklahoma gals, I had learned to "talk funny," presumably because of my "foreign mother."
Imagine our family's surprise when we realized that everyone in Thunder Bay shared our mother's idiosyncratic pronunciations. In fact, the folks up here sounded weirder. Everyone here says "PASS-ta" for pasta, as my mother did. However, she'd lost the tendency to say "BATT-ree" for battery, which is normal here. I never heard her pronounce "corollary" as "kuh-RAW-luh-ree" instead of "CORE-oh-lair-ee"--also normal in these parts.
Roy informed me last week that the Premier of Ontario isn't the "pre-MEER," he's the "PRE-meer."
Those decals you put on your car windows are "DECK-els," not "duh-KALS."
You say "roof" with your lips pursed--I invariably say "woof" instead--instead of tending toward the short "u" sound, as in "rut." Also, "route" doesn't rhyme with "about"--think "root," those things plants send underground. Only not "root" as I've heard is pronounced down south, which also tends to "rut."
Canadians, of course, are all polite and most strangers, therefore, don't give me crap about my accent to my face. However, sometimes they can't help themselves. When I was ordering the tray of Nanaimo bars for our wedding, the woman at the deli asked me to repeat myself several times and finally said, "I'm sorry; your accent throws me off."
MY accent? She was kidding, right? I'll just sit in my office (view in the photo) and ponder that.
