this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2025
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I never understood this stereotype (aboot vs about). I’m Canadian, lived here all my life, my family is all Canadian and all have lived here all their lives. I’ve got family all across the country, from the western coast of BC to the eastern coast of Newfoundland, from the northern stretches of Nunavut to the most southern tip of Ontario, and very rarely have I ever heard it pronounced that way. It’s actually really funny as a Canadian to look up “how to speak like a Canadian” and watch how awful most of the “tips” are. I’d recommend it.
I think "oot" emphasises the difference from US accents for parody reasons, and also it's just not that simple to describe that difference by substituting a single letter of the alphabet. The best way I can think of to describe it (based on experience with friends from BC) is like a combination of "oht" and "oat"
I'm in the US and I have to support this analysis. I dated someone from Canada when I was younger, and at first he expressed the same thought as the poster above - he didn't hear the difference, so he didn't get it.
Until he came to visit me in the states. The difference between how his dad and my dad talked was so apparent, the stereotype just "clicked." To say "aboot" is definitely an exaggeration, but in all fairness, it's really hard to repeat a sound that isn't in your native dialect. There is no US-English equivalent for the "ou" sound in Canadian English "about."
It's like when a Japanese speaker uses a Z sound instead of English TH - it's not because Z is exactly what they hear when an English person says TH, but because the TH sound doesn't exist in Japanese at all. In both cases (and so many more across the world), speakers substitute non-standard sounds with ones they already know.
A lot of people in the us will misinterpret a rural Ontario accent as Californian because way back in the day a bunch of people from Ontario moved to California and apparently the accent kind of caught on.
There's a town called Ontario in California even.
Same, never heard 'aboot' in my life. However, I do tend to say '-eh' all the time, especially at the end of sentences as emphasis.
I definitely use “eh” a lot, that stereotype is pretty accurate, though I feel like a lot of Americans don’t quite understand the usage of the word.
It's exaggerated. I'm from Newfoundland and have little to no regional accent, but still have very slight grammatical and phonetic tells that are apparently obvious to people from elsewhere.
I use more long "O" sounds than people in the US which is apparently obvious almost immediately, and I have some odd grammar whitch apparently singles me out as from NL very quickly to anyone in Canada.
Also, apparently the way I say "thirteen" has a stronger hint of Newfoundland in it than the rest of my speech, at least according to one of my co-workers from Ontario.
It's quite possible that having such a wide ranging family same social circle has simple acclimated you to the various regional differences in dialect.
I watch a lot of Canadian Youtube, it's totally a mix.
80% of the time it's identical to US about
19% of the time it's aboawt.
1% of the time it's totally a-boot.
With a US English ear, it's jarring. (not in a bad way) but we totally notice it.
Not eveyone does it. Linus from Linus tech tips drops one every few shows, but then Electro Boom never does. Bobsdecline does it a little less often.
It's kind of like the US and Brittish people saying Idear instead of idea. it happens once in a while
I think Linus does it as a meme, more than as part of his natural speech.
And Bobsdecline is from the opposite coast.
The aboot thing is mostly a southern Ontario thing, but since that is where a lot of traditional media comes from, it is the most commonly exported Canadian regional accent.
Linus might be meaming it, but I have heard others say it. The aboat version of it is even common across the northern border in central US.
I also just ran across a video of two Canadian English teachers talking about it, but they too were almost in the aboat class.
aboot is all East coast. Where two things are side by each.
its more like "a-boat". I've never even been to Canada, but I can often spot a Canadian on TV within moments based on how they speak.
How does an American pronounce it?
A vast majority of the Canadians I know pronounce it the same way as “out”, “sprout”, “trout” etc.
Like Ah-bout.. "bout" pronounced like a fight between two people.
Yeah that’s the same up here for most folks I know.
To me a standard American accent sounds like they're replacing the OU with AW, "abawt". Or maybe "abowt" if they pronounced it like the bow of a ship (not like a fancy knot or the weapon).
Awt. I went awt and abawt.
Afaik, the aboot thing is a regional dialect thing in parts of Ontario.
And, as we know, Toronto represents all Canadians... (or at least thinks they do)
Let’s hope the new “Toronto man” accent doesn’t come to represent all of Canada in the coming years.
A boawt
It's harder to make a joke with zed vs zee.
It's because everyone's accents have gotten less distinct/strong due to TV. I know people from the US south with barely an accent because of this.
Also, some of the accent stereotype comes from your own movie productions, especially older ones when the accents were more like that:
https://youtu.be/EojzfxXGxtE
Granted they are playing this up for their characters
I absolutely love Bob and Doug McKenzie but they’re definitely not representative of the average Canadian. Like you said, they’re playing it up for their characters. They play an exaggerated stereotype of a dim-witted drunken Canadian. They’re kind of like Canadian Homer Simpsons in a way. A great comedy duo, truly one of the best, but most Canadians don’t sound like that.
East Coast thing in my experience. Especially more rural
One time I was having a conversation with a woman that I had never met before. About 5 minutes into the conversation, she used a word with the "ou" vowel sound and I asked her if she was Canadian. She was caught off guard and didn't understand how I correctly assumed she was Canadian.