Travel Advice

How to make a Canadian Annoyed


Originally this article was going to be called how to make a Canadian pissed off, but as a Canadian never gets pissed off just annoyed the name was changed. There are ways to make a Canadian angry however especially when we are abroad.

Being mistook for an American

Canadians, like else where have a deep seated sense of pride and nationalism, and even though the US is a lot bigger and its a valid guess for people to hear a North American accent and guess American it still stings a Canadian’s pride. As Canadians so badly, to the extent of being part of our national consciousness, want to be seen as different to Americans it’s the ultimate slap in the face when we are mistook for one.

sorel-bootBeing mocked for how we say “about” 

Connecting the last point one of the best  ways to tell a Canadian and American apart is by the pronunciation of vowels like o and u. Like other lands Canadians have their special spin on vowels and tend to make an interesting sound with ou together. With that said, especially in Western Canada, people really don’t pronounce the work about as aboot. What makes it worse is when people ask us to say those words so they can laugh – but then there usually surprised as we don`t say it as ridiculously as they would expect.

I don’t know the one Canadian you do… 

So often, for some unknown reason, people will ask if you know so and so from a totally different part of Canada than you’re from. Just take a moment to think of how ridiculous it is to ask someone if they know someone on the opposite site of the second largest country on the earth. Another comparison is to combine London, New York, and Tokyo together and than ask if you know the one person they do from that mega city. Canadians get annoyed being asked this question.

People constantly going on about how cold Canada is… 

Yeah, Canada is a pretty chilly place in the winter, but it is tolerable. People from abroad that meet Canadians will go on and on about how it must be intolerable living in that insane cold. Well last time we all checked winter was just 3 months long and since 80% of Canadians live within a 150 kilometres of the US border it’s not that bad for most of us. Statistics even show that Chicago is actually colder than Toronto during the winter and you don’t see people asking them if they use dog sleds to get to work or live in igloos.

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