HOW TO SPOT A YANK VERSUS HOW TO SPOT A CANADIAN

It’s the little things that make us unique

Canada Day is that time of year when Canadians try, as best as possible, to ignore the fact their culture is largely indistinguishable from that of the U.S. Sure, there’s more socialized medicine and fewer pistols on hips, but at first inspection is it possible to differentiate an American from a Canadian?

Now it is! Researched with sociologists, linguists, pollsters and bloggers, the National Post has compiled this scientific test to measure the inherent quirks Canadians may not even know they possess. Try it on your friends: find out who is the Canadian and who is the Yankee impostor.

“WHAT COMES AFTER KINDERGARTEN?”

It’s a simple question, but if they’re Canadian, the subjects will most likely answer “Grade 1.” If they’re American, it will most likely be “first grade.” There are exceptions, of course — mostly among select Californians — but this is usually an uncanny identifier.

Check their As, Os, Es and Is. Have the test subject read the following innocuous words out loud, preferably as fast as possible: pasta, drama, missile, out and decal.

Prepared with the help of University of Calgary linguist Darin Flynn, this list is full of common U.S./Canadian pronunciation traps. The first two will see the average American pronouncing the first syllable like the “o” in “hot” (draw-ma, paws-ta). The Canadian will sound the syllable like the “a” in “hat” (drah-ma). Then comes an “ile” word, which Canadians pronounce with a long “I,” as opposed to the American “missel.” The “out” is to test “Canadian raising,” with Americans usually delivering a back-of-the-throat “OW- t” compared to the Maritimey top-of-the-palate “out” (and no, few Canadians say “oot”). Then, as a kicker, there’s “decal,” a sticky product known to Americans as a “deke-al.”

QUIZ THEIR SPELLING

The average American will probably know the basic quirks of Canadian spelling: colour instead of color, cheque instead of check, etc. But they will get tripped up on the more subtle difference: defence (defense), calibre (caliber), grey (gray) and medallist (medalist). This is, admittedly, the weakest indicator on this list, however. With U.S. e-books and web content now flooding over the border without a Canadian editor to add extra Us, a generation is growing up unaware Sir Isaac Brock died to preserve their right to spell “harbour.”

“WHAT’S THIS CALLED?”

Again, many U.S. citizens will likely know that a “knit cap” is called a “tuque” in Canada. But they can be tripped up on more innocuous words. Through informal surveys of readers, Geekdad.com blogger Jules Sherred has become an unofficial expert on Canadian words that are strangely foreign to Americans. Here are four of the best examples: “runners” for running shoes, “parkade” for parking garage, “twenty-sixer” to describe a 750 ml bottle of spirits and “freezies” for a Popsicle that comes in a plastic tube.

IDENTIFY A TRAGICALLY HIP SONG

From Neil Young to Avril Lavigne to Céline Dion, Canadian pop stars usually collect most of their royalty cheques in greenbacks. This has refused to happen with The Tragically Hip. Nine of the group’s albums have reached No. 1 in Canada, but they’ve never touched the top 100 in the U.S. In the words of the BBC, they are “the most Canadian band in the world.” Even Canadians who do not own a single Hip album will have spent much of their life unwittingly basting in the group’s radio spins. American will have lived a sunless existence devoid of this blessing.

IDENTIFY A BAY BLANKET

Line up four wool blankets and ask which one comes from “The Bay.” There are no Hudson’s Bay stores in the United States, and it’s unlikely the average American would know there’s anything special about the blanket with the four coloured stripes. But in Canada, of course, the Bay blanket is the signature product of the company that played a large part in creating the country and founding many of its major cities. Photos of the Bay blanket are in Canadian history textbooks, thousands are stashed in closets and the one- time trade item still features prominently at First Nations weddings.

MIX A CAESAR

An in-depth investigation by National Post contributor Adam McDowell has controversially concluded the caesar is not, in fact, a Canadian invention. However, Canadians seem to be the only ones who enjoy regular sips of celery-salted tomato, vodka and clam juice cocktails. Americans drink clam-free bloody marys and a request for a “caesar” at an American restaurant will likely yield a salad. “Very occasionally you see something called a clam digger in New England, and it’s the same thing,” said McDowell. “But they don’t drink caesars.”

IDENTIFY TOM MULCAIR

Line up photos of three (preferably bearded) politicians and ask which is Tom Mulcair. As opposed to the internationally known mug of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Mulcair is one of the few figures to have occupied that peculiar zone of near-ubiquity on Canadian media and virtual invisibility south of the border. Since 2013, the National Post has mentioned his name 1,171 times. By contrast, The New York Times, one of the few U. S. newspapers that regularly writes about Canadian issues, mentioned it only 18 times in the same period.