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Vice Blog

CANADA - AMERICANS

When you first move to the USA you think the only difference between Americans and Canadians is Americans say "about" and Canadians say "aboot." That and they don't have a passport.

After about a year of living here you realize that's only the beginning.

Here are some observations about the USA made by a foreigner…

Americans clean up after themselves at fast food places or anywhere else for that matter. They always pick up their tray and bring it over to the garbage and tip it in and make sure it's clean and then neatly put the tray up top. Canadians figure cleaning up was included in the price and just leave all their shit there.

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Americans don't get puns. They like to do the "play on words" thing but they don't understand that they have to look into BOTH sides of a double meaning. For example, they will say, "I'm silent but deadly" without thinking that their clever saying implies they reek. Or there will be advertising campaign for coupons or something and it will say, "We tell Chicago where they can stick their five dollars!" They're just like, "I got a saying. It's a well-known saying that I applied to our company-" and that's it. They're done thinking about it after that.

Americans don't use big words. You feel like an asshole if you say pariah and even professors pronounce "proverbially" like it's "proverbally."

Americans don't do facial hair the way Canadians do. Maybe it's the Scottish thing in the Canadian blood but almost every Canadian dad will have some weird goatee thing or big mutton chops whereas Americans keep shaving those jowls right into the grave.

American punk had absolutely nothing to do with UK punk. They could give a shit about Chaos UK and The Exploited because they were into Dischord and all that sneaker and sweatshirt shit. Canadian punks see Americans as jocks and American punks see Canadians as posers.

Despite having never been to another country they have a huge superiority complex, especially when it comes to Canada. Nobody told them that, outside of New York and L.A., American cities are totally indecipherable from Canadian ones. Seattle is Vancouver, Chicago is Toronto Madison is Winnipeg etc. It's hard to get as shitty as Tampa but Halifax is trying.

Americans think simply saying, "But aren't you from Canada?" is a sufficient debate settler. Like saying to a German, "Whatever, didn't you guys invent Nazis?" Of course, they've never been there either.