I can see why you'd want to secede from the US - the shitstorms have left so much shit lying around that you can't really get anywhere, except to sink into the shit.

But up here, I'm pretty alright with Canada.

Though, if Harper gets his way even more than he has, that could change.

quoting Nessari:

Is the Pope Catholic?

Does the Pope shit in woods?

I dunno, but bears do.

So go ask them.

quoting Nessari:

Haven't yet seen these round here, but then, I haven't really been out. Just to the mall for shopping food and getting a new phone this morning and to campus this afternoon.

quoting kodé:

Get ready to join the best damn time zone this side of GMT!

My body is still living in GMT+1 – hunger and sleepiness at weird times, and no hunger at those times the clock tells me I should be hungry at. I'm really kinda glad I arrived a week early. I'm already dreading going back to Germany at Christmas, it took me like a week to readjust last time.

Also, while people frequently say "eh?" here and call bathrooms "washrooms", they don't seem to have Canadian raising. They just sound Generally American to me.

Yeah, my Californian friends say that, aside from a few distinctly Canadian vowels, I pretty much sound Californian.

…they must not have the California shifts then.

Really tho the PNW's dialect differences from everywhere else are damn subtle…I usually don't even notice them until we're discussing things and oddities emerge, and thankfully often enough Rad is able to confirm things so it's not just me being bizarre. They're also not usually pronunciation-based; so far as that goes the only difference from more eastern forms of GA is our /u:/ is only weakly centralized, if at all (mine certainly isn't.)

I often notice the west coast seems to conserve /iː/ where I'd expect an unstressed vowel to be (particularly in front of nasals)—but every time I bring this up it seems to be more spotty and isolated.

In my experience, if someone says "I need to use the washroom" when they're at home it's an attempt to be polite. Washrooms seem like inherently more formal places than bathrooms.

EDIT: Also, if Cascadia secedes, we're donating southern Alberta back to Texas. To hell with and his mannequinular Reaganophilic cronyism. Everything he does just smecks of waiting to happen.

quoting Nessari:

…they must not have the California shifts then.

Really tho the PNW's dialect differences from everywhere else are damn subtle…I usually don't even notice them until we're discussing things and oddities emerge, and thankfully often enough Rad is able to confirm things so it's not just me being bizarre. They're also not usually pronunciation-based; so far as that goes the only difference from more eastern forms of GA is our /u:/ is only weakly centralized, if at all (mine certainly isn't.)

...I can confirm many things, but your statement about /u/ is not among them! Californian and PNW English have the most fronted /u/ of anyone on the continent; half the time people front it all the way to [y] or [Y] and you never even hear it because the rounding is the wrong type (i.e. European /y/ is always compressed-type rounding; ours is protruding-type, if I've got the terms the right way around).

Must be a hick thing then, because with people I know to be native Idahoans, it's always back, back, way in the back. Can't speak for Oregon or Washington though; I'd try to listen for it but that's kinda pointless in Seattle. I'm not even sure if anyone I regularly speak to is native (most I know with absolute certainty are not, in fact.)

I don't know if this side of the border counts for anything in this discussion but the /u/ among the very few in Vancouver who grew up in Vancouver is more back than Californian /u/ or what I think of as "Keanu u". It's not "back back, way in the back" but it's definitely not fronted as much as what you're talking about

also

quoting Rhetorica:

if Cascadia secedes, we're donating southern Alberta back to Texas. To hell with and his mannequinular Reaganophilic cronyism. Everything he does just smecks of waiting to happen.

if Cascadia secedes why would we take ANY part of Alberta with us??

quoting Kereb:

I don't know if this side of the border counts for anything in this discussion but the /u/ among the very few in Vancouver who grew up in Vancouver is more back than Californian /u/ or what I think of as "Keanu u". It's not "back back, way in the back" but it's definitely not fronted as much as what you're talking about

So far as I'm concerned, yes it does count in this discussion. My dialect is a hell of a lot more similar to yours than it is to the EST folks'.

quoting Kereb:

also

quoting Rhetorica:

if Cascadia secedes, we're donating southern Alberta back to Texas. To hell with and his mannequinular Reaganophilic cronyism. Everything he does just smecks of waiting to happen.

if Cascadia secedes why would we take ANY part of Alberta with us??

I think she was speaking as the remaining part of Canada there.

"We" is the Centre of the Universe. Ontario. (Jeez, did you really think I was Cascadian? I mean, you guys are cool, and all, and I might move there someday, but I don't really want to spend my whole life hanging out with stoners, Apple employees, Microsoft employees, and the populace that elected both Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger and thought this was a good idea. It's like a fun house, only with politics. The America of America.)

quoting Rhetorica:

"We" is the Centre of the Universe. Ontario. (Jeez, did you really think I was Cascadian? I mean, you guys are cool, and all, and I might move there someday, but I don't really want to spend my whole life hanging out with stoners, Apple employees, Microsoft employees, and the populace that elected both Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger and thought this was a good idea. It's like a fun house, only with politics. The America of America.)

Uh, are you confusing Cascadia with California? There's quite a few differences between the two of our areas, though we have more in common than with you weirdos on the other side of the Rockies. I doubt any actors would get elected to office in Cascadia.

But, yes, Californian politics are fucked.

the proposal i saw for cascadia was to include NorCal but not SoCal

however that proposal also included a sasquatch militia so make of that what you will

...wait, California isn't part-and-parcel part of Cascadia? Huh. Oops. My bad. I guess that makes more sense. (Although by "stoners" and "Microsoft employees" I was trying to allude to BC and Washington respectively.)

The only part of California I've seen included more than twice in some 'serious' definitions of Cascadia is the northenmost edge of the state (more or less according to the bioregion's southern limits), or the California part of that proposed Jefferson state.

Yeah no California would not be widely welcomed as part of Cascadia, not even NorCal alone I don't think (where NorCal = San Francisco's general region and all points north.)

This is the most expansive realistic proposal for Cascadia:

(larger version linked)
Being fairly strictly geographically and bioregion-based, it's overly-broad. I don't think the Snake River Plain in particular would fit in well with Cascadia at all, myself, and parts of eastern Oregon and Washington might not be too enamored of it either (the Spokane region and North Idaho in particular are closely-knit, and historically haven't been too fond of the western and southern parts of their respective states either; I could easily see them joining up together in the turmoil of Cascadia's creation.) I can't speak at all for the BC side of things (and up to Southeastern Alaska? Um, maybe?), Kereb I'd love you long time if you could opinionate on that a little bit

But that tiny little blip into California on this map, based on what I know of the area, they'd probably fit in very well with Cascadia. (This image gives you a better idea of where that area and others are in relation to the current borders; do take note however that it was drawn based on watersheds, and thus the boundaries go too far north south and east.)

edit: just noticed this:

quoting kodé:

I doubt any actors would get elected to office in Cascadia.

For the most part that's true, but I could easily see some of the more hardcore former-actor-now-green-activists getting elected, tho maybe not to executive offices.