''pie'' and ''pa''.

"Since when did Americans say 'sah-ree'?"

Okay, then. Most Americans.

American Nic - I can also tell when someone is from Minnesota. Your accent is very similar to the one found in Canada. My good friend from Minnesota speaks with that accent, and it's very different from GAE that most Americans I have encoutered speak with (yes, she is the same one they used to tease in high school because she said pop).

Adam - define short o. Sore to me is pronounced with a long "o" If you meant another pronunciation that I misunderstood, then I apologize. The dictionary does state that it can be pronounced with either a long o or a short o. Obviously in my variety of English, sore is pronounced with a long o. I did not realize there was another pronunciation as I have never encountered another one.

Maybe that gives you away as a Canadian, but my cousins from Toronto pronounce "sore" as I do! So I might just look at you funny and ask you where you were from if you ever pronounced "sore" in front of me. We'll have to leave our discussion of whether or not you have a Canadian accent unless you'd be willing to record yourself :)

I mean short 'o', as in 'or', as opposed to long 'o', as in 'so'. I pronounce 'sore' just like an 'or' with an 's' before it, if that helps. Then again, maybe you pronounce 'or' differenctly then me, I don't know how it would sound otherwise, though.

You are right, it would settle this if we could hear a recording of each other, but, I have no way of doing it, or I would, sorry:).

Nor do I :) Oh well! ::shakes:: Maybe some other time.

All this stuff about accents and how people perceive them is interesting--the phenomenon mentioned earlier in this post about "house" and "about" is a commonly documented (and supposedly widespread) feature of Canadian English, called "Canadian vowel raising" in the [ai] and [aU] dipthong before an unvoiced consonant (I learned about all this in my phonetics and phonology classes). It's not "aboot" as some would claim, but the vowel is more like [^U], so basically the starting point is at a more central position in the mouth. Similarly, [ai] is [^i] in that phonological process. I wouldn't go so far to say ALL Canadians do this, and it's not exclusively Canadian--it's also well-documented that many Northern cities/states in America do the same.

I'm from California, and while I haven't done a road trip all thru Canada, I have visited (and been visited by) different groups of relatives from different places in Canada...some live in BC and the others in Toronto, and both sides seem to be participants in Canadian Vowel Raising. I also have friends from Minnesota and Michigan who definitely do the same.

In terms of the "or" sound in words like "sorry" and the "-orrow" words, most American dialects (including my own), pronounce it as [a:r] as in [sa:ri]....(random side note: in many dialects, including my own, it's only the small class of "sorry" and "-orrow" words where [a:r] is used...in all other words like "horrible", "orange", and "Florida" I use [o:r], as compared to East Coast [a:r]).....Anyway, back to "sorry"....I remember reading about Canadian-born Michael J. Fox and how when acting in Family Ties he said he had to remind himself to think of an Indian sari when apologizing, because his natural [so:ri] gave away his nationality. I've also heard [so:ri] in actors' speech in current shows, like Michael Cera on Arrested Development (great show, by the way) and Kelly Rowan on The OC.

I'd be interesting to hear clips of some of these posters' speech...but for this forum we have to stick pretty much to the Antimoon version of IPA. Not to contradict American Nic, but it's probably pretty likely there are at least some traces of Northern Cities-Canadian characteristics in your speech...every Minnesotan I've known has had a perceptibly distinctive accent to my ears (and vice versa, I've been told by Minnesotans I have a distinctive accent as well...with a list of subtle yet certainly present sound changes in the different regions the end result is two noticeably different dialects).

Hopefully that wasn't all too confusing...sorry if I rambled too much :)

Sorry rhymes with worry.

Not in GAE. So then you do have the Canadian accent that we speak of!

Tiffany,

That last post was not the Adam you have been posting back and forth with on this thread. Someone is impersonating me or at least didn't bother to differentiate themselves from me.

'Sorry' and 'Worry' don't rhyme when i say them. The way I say 'worry' is more like 'wirry' or 'wurry', kind of rhymes with 'drury', as in drury lane, if you know that word.

Anyway, bottom line, last post not me, and not correct either.

I know you shouldn't have to do this (after all you were here first!), but perhaps you should change your screename. I say "worry" "wuh-ree" as well. I suppose that post I replied to over in "Do Americans sound like those in Hollywood films?" is not you either. :)

No, it wasn't.

How about 'Canadian Adam' from now on.

Sounds good :)

The problem is there are too damn many Canadians on American TV. Can't any of them get jobs at home?

There are too many Quebecois on French television too. Especially Garou I am very tired of seeing his face.