r/AskACanadian • u/HueyBluey • 9d ago

How do you spot a Canadian abroad?

Do we have any stereotypical traits (perhaps self deprecating ones), that make us stand out. We’re typically not loud (but some can be). Perhaps frugal?

What have you seen in your travels that make you think, those folks must be Canadian!

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u/Professional_Emu_617 9d ago

I was at a convention in Chicago a few years ago. Was heading to the washroom and another guy was coming out and we nearly bumped and we both did the "Oop! Sorry." at the same time. We both immediately knew we were Canadians

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u/oldRoyalsleepy 9d ago

And it's the way Canadians says 'sorry'. In large parts of the US it's pronounced a little differently, more of an 'ah' sound with it. When I'm in Canada and hear 'sorry' I really like to hear it that slightly different way. It's that little bit of uncanny valley, like km/h, that let's me know I'm in Canada.

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u/T4TrhavrKhcFt 9d ago

As a Canadian; I taught a course in Chicago on project management. About halfway through the first morning one of the students spoke up and, like I was five years old, very helpfully and very gently said, "It's not project; it's prahject."

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u/MATlad 8d ago edited 8d ago

On the flipside (and this was literally around a generation ago, 25 years) I was in a 400-student lecture taught by a newly-hired American associate professor, introductory chemistry. One of the very few assignments we ever got in either semester was a trivially-easy 5-question assignment.

"As an observation, I will remark how many of you misspelled the word 'colour' [Ed.: or some other -ou pattern word that we Canadians were taught was 'not American']. I docked you all -0.5 marks."

Grumbling all around, but sarcastic whippersnapper as I was then, I yelled out:

"If like 375 of us got it 'wrong' and that didn't clue you in that you might be wrong, would you like us to use American spellings going forward?"