Re: Nanny really cracks the whip.

Many of the Scottish landed gentry, as youngsters, were actually sent
to English boarding schools where they had all their Scottish sounds
knocked out of them. Then they returned to take over their vast
shooting estates, where most of their chums spoke in the same way, and
only the ghillies and gamekeepers sound like locals. These lairds are
often clan chiefs with Scottish pedigrees going way back, but they
sound more poshly English than many real English people.

He sounded like he fit the profile you describe, but he didn't advertise
his background other than to say he was raised on a farm along Loch Lomond.
He was very knowledgable about farming practices and he also knew the names
of all the lairds in Scotland. In fact, if you mentioned some small place
you'd visited, the first thing he would do is run down a mental list of
lairds trying to recall who was the particular one for that place.

You certainly speak very clearly. How much in the way of regional
accents is there in Canada anyway? Does someone from Vancouver, say,
sound very different from your own neighbours?

Well, it doesn't work like that. People from Ottawa (english speakers that
is - there's the whole French Canadian thing going on here too) and
Vancouver sound reasonably the same in spite of the 3000 km separating
them. But you need only drive 15 minutes outside Ottawa 'up the valley' and
hear a very broad accent in the rural areas. And their accent will be
different from a farmer on the praries. And Newfies have a unique
accent/language evolved from Celtic ancestors. And Maritimers such as those
from Nova Scotia and PEI and New Brunswick are different again. Quebec is
French-first (French only in some parts). Just south of here in Stormont-
Dundas county, they've just wrapped up their highland games.

And of course there's Torontonians who have all but seceeded to the USA and
talk more and more like Yanks. Worse still, they think like them now.

Johnny-hopefully-at-a-safe-distance-from-Toronto
.

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