Okay, so you might have picked up from the title that I’m Canadian. This is true. I was born and raised in a country that gets picked on for, well, almost everything. Being Canadian includes, among many other things, having a great sense of humor. I like to think the reason we get singled out as much as we do is because we’re easy going and don’t really take things to heart. As long as you don’t insult our beer, hockey teams or our mothers, we’ll get along just fine.
Being Canadian also means tolerating a mimic of our accent. Now personally, I don’t see it; the accent that is. But like every other country on the planet, we’re never the ones with the accent, it’s always the other guy. So when the topic becomes discussion, I sit back and wait for the inevitable ‘eh’ to be thrown in as an attempt at an impersonation.
Speaking for most traveling Canadians, I have to admit we don’t know what this impression is suppose to mean. We get that it’s an attempt at making a funny, but (it seems) unbeknownst to others, eh? is a word, not an accent.
It’s a colloquialism at best, but it’s still not an accent. Eh? is how we as Canadians confirm a question (yes, its use comes with a few unwritten rules). To say ‘Oh, you’re Canadian, ehhhhh?’ is incorrect because it’s said in the wrong context, but to say “She’s Canadian eh?” is officially (and colloquialism-ly) correct. There is a difference, at least to us…eh?
