Awn
I am probably guilty of doing this when I (rarely) say Saskatchewan.
But I didn’t know many people who didn’t have the “Mon as in monkey” script well-embedded when they complained about everyone outside of Montreal (& parts of Ottawa) pronouncing the name of the city wrong. Sure, they didn’t know what was wrong with the wrong and irritating pronunciation in technical terms, but . . .
I’m just glad to see other people mentioning this, though I like more irritation & bitterness, really.
(The [k(w)@bEk] issue is less divisive.)
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January 25th, 2005 @ 7:04 pm
My husband (a Winnipeger) has trained me how to say Saskatchewan properly, so I can go undercover when we visit Canada. ;-) (he’s says I’m pretty close.) However, he probably mispronounces Montreal too.
January 25th, 2005 @ 10:10 pm
Ack! Now I’m paranoid about saying “Montreal”
January 25th, 2005 @ 11:10 pm
It’s not too hard to get that final syllable right and the others — well, just practice saying ’sorry’ the Canadian way. (I don’t usually say it that way. I think. As soon as I figure out how I pronounce things I change it.)
And, Profgrrrl, this is just a pet peeve of mine. And probably most other native Montrealers. But no one else even knows that you’re saying it wrong. Just avoid Montrealers. :>
January 25th, 2005 @ 11:41 pm
Well, I can say sorry the Canadian way. :)
I shipped off to college with the accent and worked hard to lose it. I still slip back when tired or drunk.
January 26th, 2005 @ 9:06 am
I *can* say sorry with the o-in-sore, but usually I don’t. I think I use it in borrow more often, but again, I think usually I don’t. I don’t know. This is the biggest problem with having taken too many linguistics classes. Everything — and on alternate days nothing — sounds grammatical. The second biggest problem is that every verb sounds like a euphemism for sex.
I think I worked to gain it while I was in the US, though not all that consistently. Did you live in Canada, or is it just that you got it through living elsewhere?
January 26th, 2005 @ 9:10 am
Also, Profgrrrl, don’t be too paranoid. This is just a rant I make periodically. I’ve posted about it before, and apparently bitched about it in comments, too.
January 26th, 2005 @ 6:57 pm
7 years. Maritimes. :)
January 26th, 2005 @ 10:54 pm
Really? I’ve only been to Halifax, and that only for a few days. But I loved it there — hope to get back there, one day, after the snow melts. My grandmother’s from Saint John — I’d do a whole Maritimes trip but . . . well, there’s a reason I said what I did about my intending things.
But I had no idea you had lived in Canada. How neat.
January 29th, 2005 @ 4:34 pm
I’ve been told (by a Saskatchewanian–I mean a Saskatchewander–no, wait…) that the correct pronunciation of Saskatchewan has only one vowel, viz. the [æ] in the second syllable. The final syllable has a syllabic [n] (Okay); the initial one has a syllabic [s] (Yeah, I guess that’s all right); and the third syllable has, apparently, a syllabic [w] (Hey, isn’t a syllabic [w] an [u]? But it seems that in Saskatchewan it isn’t).