Cassie 10000

Please ask this question in the lounge, or if you give me permission I will

FlirtyKnickers

Your asking for trouble....you know they hate us up here

Cassie 10000

It would be good for a laugh and you know it

FlirtyKnickers

Go on then....let the fun commence

Cassie 10000

I better wait first, it was her thread. I don't want to be done for copy right.

willmore

You are such a trouble maker. Ever since your thread in TIO was such a success you've been So difficult to live with.......

phat-dave

I think it's just hype ... just like the Aussies hate Kiwi's.... it's not necessarily true.

Lord Vader

Canadians are Americans in the same sense the Germans are Europeans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29g57XTYgLE

scrubbedexpat091

You really can't tell Canadians and Americans apart soley on accent. There is no true Canadian or American Accent.

The American accent in say Los Angeles is completely different then say down south or in the NE and New England area.

I certainly sound nothing like someone from Boston or New York or down south being from California originally.

Same is true for Canadians, someone from Nova Scotia or New Foundland can sound different from someone from Vancouver, or Edmonton, where Quebec residents sound different then most of the country,

Too many regional differences in my opinion to ever say obvious American or Canadian accent.

scrubbedexpat091

Considering up to recently Americans made up one of the largest groups of foreign tourists to Canada, I would not say Americans hate Canadians or Vice Versa.

Some outspoken few may make it appear that way though.

The average American lives too far from the Canadian border to really be influenced by Canada, one reason Canadians know more about the US than vice versa is simply because the US had/has a larger influence on Canada.

I grew up 10 minutes from Mexico, Mexico was studied more then Canada was, we learned little about Canada, all had to do with geography and which country had more influence in that region.

Schools in Maine may very well spend more time on Canada and less on Mexico.

Novocastrian

Dream on.

KS2008

While I think that just about everyone agrees that there is no antipathy today (I've certainly never heard more than a bit of good natured ribbing of Americans), I am surprised that nobody has mentioned the historical origins of the hostility that once existed, i.e. the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

Canada only exists in its present form because during and after the Revolutionary War the Loyalists were persecuted, in some case tarred and feathered, and had their property destroyed or stolen by what appeared to them to be dangerous extremists. Finally driven from their homes, those people, many of them originally from the cities, found themselves essentially exiled in the wilderness with only a tent, a blanket and what meager provisions the British Army could provide them with. Then, a couple of decades later, after they had manged to build new communities, those self-same radicals invade their new homes, burning their cities and all the while claiming that they were doing them a favour. Later still there were other war scares, such as the Aroostook "War", the scare over '54'40" or Fight', the threat during the Trent Affair during the American Civil War and the Fenian Raids that were launched from US soil.

That may all be a long time ago, but it goes to the heart of what is essentially Canada's "creation myth" and even as the hostility has faded then there is bound to be some legacy to it. So, while there is friendship today, the history is bound to influence some people's perceptions and views, even if they don't know why or how.

el_richo

Of course you can.

dbd33

Perhaps in the same sense as the Germans are French.

dbd33

Surely that's only of interest if you see yourself as being a descendant of the Loyalists, (there are groups of such people here, Canada must have the most Orange lodges outside Northern Ireland, but it's not a mainstream thing). There was no Canada in 1812 so any war then was just a squabble among Brits, most Canadians have no connection to the British and so what the British did is irrelevant to them. In fact, I doubt most Canadians have even heard of the war of 1812; you'd have to be educated here and then have taken a particular interest in history or be a history buff before arriving in Canada.

I think the root of jocular friction is more likely to be that Americans are the rich kids next door (unless they get sick); and that successful Canadians become Americans. The Americans I know who have heard of Canada think of it as that frozen and vaguely socialist state where the draft dodgers and gay marriests go, what opinion derives from that depends on the politics of the individual American.