Weird Things Americans Have Said To/Asked Me

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

That snowman can't have any children, he has no snowballs.

[Sam and Ben 2]

Throughout school, I would constantly be reprimanded by teachers/professors for saying "zee". I don't know if it was just proximity to the border, and all of the Americanized programming I grew up with... but I've never really had the zee/zed issue.

I had no idea about the differences in saying "mobile", though. Hubby-to-be and I have been fiddling with cell plans the past couple of days so I can drop Virgin Mobile and get added to his Verizon plan. It wasn't until he said, "Why do you pronounce it that way? Another Canadian thing?" Haha. "It's moBULL."

MoBULL sounds funny.

His sister made the comment that if I was lucky enough to be here before Christmas, I'd miss out on all of that snow.... I had to remind her that we don't even usually see snow in my area until January, least not fluffy-white, Christmas snow...

And the entire family looked at me like I was nuts in April when I didn't blink at jumping in the pool when it was sitting at 72 Fahrenheit.. My bad.

[The_Dude 1,142]

The one that gets me is the pronunication of Lieutenant. I know that the British say it Leff-tenant, and we say it Lew-tenant. I don't get the leff-tenant pronunciation. How would you say to someone "Can I pay you in Canadian dollars in lieu of U.S. Dollars"?

[warlord 73]

The one that gets me is the pronunication of Lieutenant. I know that the British say it Leff-tenant, and we say it Lew-tenant. I don't get the leff-tenant pronunciation. How would you say to someone "Can I pay you in Canadian dollars in lieu of U.S. Dollars"?

Wonder if it stems from the fact that England and France haven't always been too great of friends. Maybe the English got sick of saying a word with French roots and said screw it, we'll change the pronounciation so we don't sound like them.

I'd be the same way, though I do say Lietenent rather then Leftenent. Maybe I should switch it since I am English decendent and not French.

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

The one that gets me is the pronunication of Lieutenant. I know that the British say it Leff-tenant, and we say it Lew-tenant. I don't get the leff-tenant pronunciation. How would you say to someone "Can I pay you in Canadian dollars in lieu of U.S. Dollars"?

Do you take Canadian Tire Money?

[The_Dude 1,142]

The one that gets me is the pronunication of Lieutenant. I know that the British say it Leff-tenant, and we say it Lew-tenant. I don't get the leff-tenant pronunciation. How would you say to someone "Can I pay you in Canadian dollars in lieu of U.S. Dollars"?

Do you take Canadian Tire Money?

Oh hell no, I hate that place

[Malrothien 6]

This one today... uhm... yeah.

Guy walks into the office speaking French.

Me: Hello! I'm sorry, but I don't speak French.

Him: Why not?

Me: I'm not Canadian so I guess I haven't had a need to.

Him: Where are you from?

Me: The States.

Him: I have a big problem with Americans.

Me: I'm sorry to hear that?

Him: They're global dictators.

He was being 100% serious. He immediately stopped talking to me and started talking to my co-worker.

[Ontarkie 14,333]

Throughout school, I would constantly be reprimanded by teachers/professors for saying "zee". I don't know if it was just proximity to the border, and all of the Americanized programming I grew up with... but I've never really had the zee/zed issue.

I had no idea about the differences in saying "mobile", though. Hubby-to-be and I have been fiddling with cell plans the past couple of days so I can drop Virgin Mobile and get added to his Verizon plan. It wasn't until he said, "Why do you pronounce it that way? Another Canadian thing?" Haha. "It's moBULL."

MoBULL sounds funny.

His sister made the comment that if I was lucky enough to be here before Christmas, I'd miss out on all of that snow.... I had to remind her that we don't even usually see snow in my area until January, least not fluffy-white, Christmas snow...

And the entire family looked at me like I was nuts in April when I didn't blink at jumping in the pool when it was sitting at 72 Fahrenheit.. My bad.

The jumping in the pool bit cracked me up. We got here last year it was May and withing 3 days of being here the kids bugged me to get the pool set up it was hot. We got the funny looks then too and was told it was way too early for that. We went from having snow on the ground just days before we left to hot hot weather ya the pool was needed. This year we had it up before Easter and the kids were in it. I waited just a bit longer but was still in it in April yay swimming in April outside. Love not having to wait till the end of June and this summer might of been later then june. It was cold in Aug when we jumped in the lake.

MAlrothien--Now the guy who spoke french to you was just rude not everyone in Canada can speak french, I refuse to speak it and haven't since I finished grade school never spoke it again.

Danielle

[Krikit 1,165]

This one today... uhm... yeah.

Guy walks into the office speaking French.

Me: Hello! I'm sorry, but I don't speak French.

Him: Why not?

Me: I'm not Canadian so I guess I haven't had a need to.

Him: Where are you from?

Me: The States.

Him: I have a big problem with Americans.

Me: I'm sorry to hear that?

Him: They're global dictators.

He was being 100% serious. He immediately stopped talking to me and started talking to my co-worker.

Wow. That's really arrogant. It just goes to show you there are losers everywhere. lol

[warlord 73]

This one today... uhm... yeah.

Guy walks into the office speaking French.

Me: Hello! I'm sorry, but I don't speak French.

Him: Why not?

Me: I'm not Canadian so I guess I haven't had a need to.

Him: Where are you from?

Me: The States.

Him: I have a big problem with Americans.

Me: I'm sorry to hear that?

Him: They're global dictators.

He was being 100% serious. He immediately stopped talking to me and started talking to my co-worker.

Wow. That's really arrogant. It just goes to show you there are losers everywhere. lol

Speaking of sometime similar. In Guelph in the 80's my friend worked at a gas station and a guy with Quebec licence plates drives up and starts speaking in French to my friend (who like in Oregon and New Jersey there was no self serve). My friend looks at him and goes what do you want? The guy continues in french and getting more and more aggravated. Finally my friend is like "I don't know what the hell you want, if you can't speak English I can't help you". The guy amazingly spoke English to him.

He was pissed that this guy knew how to speak English but refused to do it in a English speaking city and province. Sorry for knocking on the french, but this previous post reminded me of that...

[Krikit 1,165]

He was pissed that this guy knew how to speak English but refused to do it in a English speaking city and province. Sorry for knocking on the french, but this previous post reminded me of that...

It's incidents like those that give the French-Canadians a bad name. I was once at a service area in Quebec when an english-speaking person came in and tried to order something. (I got the impression they were American but I could be wrong.) The employees all pretended that they couldn't understand or speak english, even though they could. I know this because they were talking about it to each other in French (while he was standing there). I ordered for him. So uncalled for.

[warlord 73]

He was pissed that this guy knew how to speak English but refused to do it in a English speaking city and province. Sorry for knocking on the french, but this previous post reminded me of that...

It's incidents like those that give the French-Canadians a bad name. I was once at a service area in Quebec when an english-speaking person came in and tried to order something. (I got the impression they were American but I could be wrong.) The employees all pretended that they couldn't understand or speak english, even though they could. I know this because they were talking about it to each other in French (while he was standing there). I ordered for him. So uncalled for.

My girlfriend in college wanted to go to Quebec as she liked visiting there. She knew I spoke no french what so ever and said when we went (we never did get around to it) that she wanted me to pretend like I was an American. She told me that if they knew I was American and didn't know french they would be a lot more understanding and would speak English in most cases. She said if they found out I was canadian and didn't speak french then that was a whole different story and I would be treated very rudely. So she kept saying, remember if we go, you are an American.

I think that was the first time in my life I was looking forward to actually saying "I'm Canadian" ha ha, I just wanted to cause as much sistress as possible and torment my poor girlfriend for fun if we were there...

Edited September 30, 2009 by warlord

[JillA 2]

He was pissed that this guy knew how to speak English but refused to do it in a English speaking city and province. Sorry for knocking on the french, but this previous post reminded me of that...

It's incidents like those that give the French-Canadians a bad name. I was once at a service area in Quebec when an english-speaking person came in and tried to order something. (I got the impression they were American but I could be wrong.) The employees all pretended that they couldn't understand or speak english, even though they could. I know this because they were talking about it to each other in French (while he was standing there). I ordered for him. So uncalled for.

My girlfriend in college wanted to go to Quebec as she liked visiting there. She knew I spoke no french what so ever and said when we went (we never did get around to it) that she wanted me to pretend like I was an American. She told me that if they knew I was American and didn't know french they would be a lot more understanding and would speak English in most cases. She said if they found out I was canadian and didn't speak french then that was a whole different story and I would be treated very rudely. So she kept saying, remember if we go, you are an American...

I bet you loved that, didn't you Warlord

[Dan and Ali 3]

He was pissed that this guy knew how to speak English but refused to do it in a English speaking city and province. Sorry for knocking on the french, but this previous post reminded me of that...

It's incidents like those that give the French-Canadians a bad name. I was once at a service area in Quebec when an english-speaking person came in and tried to order something. (I got the impression they were American but I could be wrong.) The employees all pretended that they couldn't understand or speak english, even though they could. I know this because they were talking about it to each other in French (while he was standing there). I ordered for him. So uncalled for.

I work for the government and only speak very limited French which hasn't went over well with a few of the French people I've had to deal with. There aren't many French people where I live (the French population in Alberta isn't exactly booming ;P) but the ones I have dealt with always seemed to be so shocked/upset that I'm not fluent. Many of them request to speak to a French agent. In our office we only have one fluently bilingual agent and if she's busy with someone else they're SOL -- so they have to deal with someone like me who isn't fluent. What gets me is that they speak English perfectly fine, yet they seem so upset they have to deal with me in English. I mean, I know that we have two official languages but like I said -- the French population in my area is almost nonexistant so it's a bit annoying.

/rant ;P

[KnJ 0]

He was pissed that this guy knew how to speak English but refused to do it in a English speaking city and province. Sorry for knocking on the french, but this previous post reminded me of that...

It's incidents like those that give the French-Canadians a bad name. I was once at a service area in Quebec when an english-speaking person came in and tried to order something. (I got the impression they were American but I could be wrong.) The employees all pretended that they couldn't understand or speak english, even though they could. I know this because they were talking about it to each other in French (while he was standing there). I ordered for him. So uncalled for.

I work for the government and only speak very limited French which hasn't went over well with a few of the French people I've had to deal with. There aren't many French people where I live (the French population in Alberta isn't exactly booming ;P) but the ones I have dealt with always seemed to be so shocked/upset that I'm not fluent. Many of them request to speak to a French agent. In our office we only have one fluently bilingual agent and if she's busy with someone else they're SOL -- so they have to deal with someone like me who isn't fluent. What gets me is that they speak English perfectly fine, yet they seem so upset they have to deal with me in English. I mean, I know that we have two official languages but like I said -- the French population in my area is almost nonexistant so it's a bit annoying.

/rant ;P

I think I read somewhere that the goverment has a policy that every Canadian has a right to be served by their government in either English or French? In which case, if they prefer to be served in French, they are reacting to not being served in French with annoyance, since it's what they expect. However, it's understandable to me that Alberta wouldn't have a need to serve many French people and thus can get away with hiring not-so-fluent people for front line work. I'm not sure whether Canadian govt in Quebec can get away with hiring French people who are not-so-fluent in English.

It's such a political hot-button. I think bilingualism is a good thing, and I suck for not being able to speak French

I started learning sign language when I worked with a woman who is deaf. I think I'd try the same if I spent a lot of time with someone who was native French speaking, even though I struggle with learning verbal languages. I'd probably need immersion.

______________

I still can't get past "soda". I can't understand it. It takes me long seconds before I figure out they aren't talking about Club Soda, Baking Soda... ohhhh. You mean pop (which is also a strange useage, but hey). I have an aversion to saying Soda. I'll say cola, or a brand name.