When I am travelling to the US, folks there like to make fun of Canadians for saying two things: “A – boot” for “about,” and often saying “I’m sorry.”
I have lived and worked in both countries. I don’t really hear the exaggerated “boot” US people think they hear; but there is a difference in Canada and US pronunciation. In the US, they say “a-bow-oot” while Canadians clip and shorten the word.
It is the same difference that lets some in the US get three syllables in the word “dog” but a Canadian can’t. And you’ll never hear a Canadian say “Yall reckon.” So there are definitely differences in language between the countries.
As to the “sorry,” we admit it. I hear it everyday – grocery shopping, any crowded area. It is an interesting social dynamic to me. It is not a verbal tick, not a filler word or pronunciation but an interpersonal dynamic. It relates to the very Canadian style of respecting others in their community.
By saying “sorry” someone is respecting the other person’s space and their right to be there – if you may have intruded into that space. If respecting others is a sign of weakness, I guess this may be seen as a Canadian failing. I see it as a real societal strength – building unity.
Politeness, decorum and respecting other people is a Canadian trait. Canada looks for multiculturalism where we can all wear our origins as easily as we wear our flannel shirts and toques while we slurp our maple syrup or eat some daal chapatis or birria tacos.
The US, on the other hand, sees itself as a melting pot where immigrants need to merge into the mainstream and disappear. In the US there are only winners and losers. In Canada, there are colleagues.
At the end of important hockey games, the teams maintain a Canadian tradition to line up and shake hands. A very Canadian thing to do. At the end of a US football game, players congratulate themselves prancing around shouting “We’re Number One!” while the losing team slinks off to the dressing room.
Canada’s national government has a cabinet with a range of visible diversity; the US federal cabinet has old white men and three token women. One cabinet is representative and multicultural; the other the result of a melting pot that filters outsiders for a generation or more.
Every conversation about national capabilities in the US starts with their assumption that the US is number one. To draw from the famous speech from the film “Newsroom”, the US is actually number one at putting citizens in jail, spending on military, and US football. None of those should be the basis of national pride.
On the military front, the US has tried to invade Canada at least three times, all unsuccessful. The greatest ever military in the history of history, the US military is coming off a series of embarrassing defeats in Asia – Vietnam, Afghanistan and now Iran. They certainly have lots of equipment and spend a lot of money, but… I’m sorry, based on their record, they are hardly the greatest, even of the current time.
Why are so many US people in jail? It could be because the US approach creates the social context for confrontation both for the representatives of authority and for those who feel they are adamant in defending their rights. There is not much trust on either side and few options to de-escalate any confrontation, only options to escalate it. That need for escalation might also be seen in the US desire to constantly use hyperbole to exaggerate every small achievement – in the history of history, there has never been as iconic a society…and so on.
The Canadian approach creates the context of cooperation. The US is a war machine having made many invasions in its history; Canada for many years wore the blue helmets of peacekeepers around the world. Even the Canadian indigenous recognition statement “We are on the unceded lands of the q̓ic̓əy̓, q̓ʷɑ:n̓ƛ̓ən̓, and sǝmyámǝ” is a measure of respect for other people. Nothing of the kind exists in the US where admitting someone else’s rights may be seen as surrendering some of your own.
That helps explain why the US leads the world in incarcerations. It might also explain why the US has twice as many lawyers per capita as Canada. Compare that to Japan where the spirit of community is extremely strong. Japan has one tenth the number of lawyers per capita that Canada has. Japan is an even more extreme example of working together.
Should giving an inch to get along be part of the vernacular? You might say, when translating culturally, the US equivalent of the Canadian “I’m sorry” is just “Get out of my fucking way!” or as Ratso Rizzo says in Midnight Cowboy, “Hey, I’m walking here!“
One theory for the difference in approach is that the US started with an armed revolution, aided by the French, for the colonial residents to have more money. Their slogan was “No taxation without representation” even though they didn’t really care all that much about the representation part, limiting it only to white land owners.
Canada never took up arms in confrontation for its independence. Canada negotiated a separation that occurred gradually and calmly. Neither side screamed victory or mocked the other as being beaten. While the US shouts that it is all about freedom, it was to Canada where many US slaves escaped to find that freedom via the Underground Railway for a hundred years or so. In reality, the US has consistently been more about economics than liberty.
Canada has never had a civil war killing almost a million of its citizens. The US Civil War was a war that, given current US politics, seemingly has still not yet been resolved. That war was about economics too. The country is still captive to a collective greed, expressing expansionary desires but not really knowing what to do with some of its current colonial territories: Puerto Rico, Guam, Virgin Islands. It is like the billionaire who still wants to acquire more even though they can’t use what they already have. Desire to acquire means starting wars that they cannot win or threatening invasions or territorial acquisition.
Is one culture better than the other for its citizens? It really depends on the individual’s personality. Do you thrive on anxiety, do you want more and more, do you want a one in a million chance to become rich? Or are you looking for safety and stability in your life? The US is clearly a larger market which could mean higher rewards, al least for some.
With the kind of conflict, confusion, violence and total chaos in the sophomoric, acrimonious politics in the US these days, Canadians today just look at the US, shake their heads with pity. and say, “I’m sorry.”
Now here’s a cartoon from the New Yorker.
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