Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Username

patadragon

Member Since

October 29, 2010

Total number of comments

1

Total number of votes received

14

Bio

Latest Comments

Canadian Native, being a central Canadian I can attest that Canadian raising is common here. An easy way to tell if you have Canadian raising in your dialect is to try saying 'house' as a noun and a verb (eg. I will house the dog in my new house). Also try pairs like knife/knives and lout/loud.

If you pronounce these pairs of words differently then you have Canadian raising and others might hear something like 'boot' or 'boat' when you say 'about'.

In fact, the wikipedia article on Canadian English suggests that Canadian raising is common in Western and Central Canada and is rarer in the Maritimes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_raising