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Comment by jollybean | Hacker News Reader

Canadian English is closer to American English, but Canadians (at least up until recently) 'get' Britishisms, or at least, the tone if not all of the specific vocabulary, to a great extent.

Edit: excluding Quebec where cultural references are completely different.

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As an American that grew up reading Brian Jacques and Terry Pratchett, I don't think there's any difficulty in understanding Britishisms, even at a very young age. Even unbowdlerized Shakespeare isn't very difficult, it's mostly phonetically similar and the speech patterns are still present.

Your personal experience is likely not representative of 'America'.

America is a vast, vast place with very large numbers of people who have no cultural connection to 'English' culture. I mean - because America is an English colony, everyone does to some extent, but it's much deeper in some places (and groups) than others. Even those with continental European background, the further S. and E. you go, the less the resonance. And of course people with European backgrounds ... that's only part of America. Huge swaths of kids speak a language other than English at home, there's going to be no direct resonance with an 'Alternative English' (i.e. beyond American) in those cases.

Also, most children do not have any resonance with anything but their immediate culture - it takes a lot to get kinds beyond what's on TV, and/or what's in their immediate family environment.

I have utterly no idea why my OP is being downvoted. Usually, going against the grain on something will get you downvoted, or saying something silly but I can't fathom either this case.

> because America is an English colony

I thought we settled that particular dispute a while back.

I have no cultural or genetic connection to England or western Europe outside of growing up in an English speaking country. Might have helped that I wasn't allowed to watch TV as a child though!

This is false. Incredibly so in the western provinces.

It's absolutely correct, though it varies by province.

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