Nobody Actually Says 'Aboot'

Looks like I may have slandered Canadians.

On Friday when I complained about "Caillou" and other Canadian kids' shows, I said they were rife with "aboots."

But as the Dialect Blog pointed out today, Canadians don't actually say this. Instead, they say "aboat."

From the post:

What’s the deal with aboot? Where does this mythological pronunciation come from?

One thing I’ve heard is that aboot is a pronunciation in a particular region of Canada: the Atlantic Provinces (Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, etc). But I have never found a clip of anybody from that area who says aboot.

So this is probably one of those bits of dialect folklore that survives despite evidence to the contrary. It’s a bit like New Jersey’s reputation for being pronounced “New Joysey” even though virtually nobody in Jersey says it like that anymore (and even when they did, this pronunciation would have been confined to a small area near New York).

Now that I think about it, "aboat" is much closer to reality. I had a conversation with a Canadian on Friday, and he definitely wasn't saying "aboot."

So BuboBlog apologizes.

But you won't hear me say I'm "sore-y."