Henry Raymond
Fairfax Bloggers => Uncle Mike's Thoughts Of The Day => Topic started by: MikeF9 on January 31, 2011, 11:43:45 PM
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Tuesday February 1, 2011
Picture of the Day
(http://www.vtgrandpa.com/photos/albums/mikecain2011vol1/DSC03280.sized.jpg)
"So, you goin' out and about on a boat, eh?"
Once upon a time there was this commercial for one of the Canadian provences, and it was two radio guys taking about heading out on a boat for the weekend. It was funny because of their English Canadian accent. "About" sounds like "aboot", even boat sounds like boot, and every sentence ends in "eh?". Think Bob and Doug McKenzie.
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Have you ever read Judevine by David Budbill? He writes with a Vermont and sometimes French Canadian accent. One of his characters is a toothless old French Canadian woman, and Budbill writes what she says using mostly vowels. If you know a French Canadian accent, you can decipher what he writes and hear her clear as a bell.
One of my favorite characters of his is a local lift attendant working in Stowe who brings two pieces of bread to work each day, smeared with mustard. He goes in the lodge in the morning, and helps himself to a little bit of meat and cheese from other sandwiches skiers have stowed in backpacks for the day. He might be the same character who lives in a bread truck with a tree growing up out of the middle of it.
Then, there's those Bert and I records with stories from DownEast Maine. My brother can recite those stories word for word, imitating a Maine accent perfectly.
It's all music to my ears!
I remember seeing my dad on the local news one night, being interviewed for building Sterling Ridge Inn in Jeffersonville. I didn't know he was going to be on the news, so it was a funny surprise. After watching him, I couldn't help but notice his Vermont accent, which has been there forever, but I had never noticed it until I saw him on TV in his Johnson Woolen Mill hunting jacket!