It's when I open my mouth, eh?

I was chatting with someone I hadn't spoken to before at the bike club today, and she asked right away, "are you Canadian?" She said she could tell by my accent.

That's the first time that's happened to me here. I'm aware of having a slightly different accent from most others around here, but I don't know if they notice. I was wondering too, if I was talking to a Canadian, would I notice the difference from the others, or is it so ingrained to me as the default accent, that I wouldn't spot it? I tend to think the latter.

As soon as I crossed the border into New York State, people would often ask me to say something twice, they wouldn't understand me the first time. I however usually understood them, but not always. It happens to me here quite a bit in California too, a store clerk will have to pause and compute what I said. They rarely ask me here to repeat something, but they obviously have to replay my words in their heads to figure it out.

When I watch TV (which isn't that often), the "American" TV accent, if it's not someone who's being obviously regional (like Texas or the south), sounds more Canadian to me than American. Is that because so many Canadians work in TV? Is it because our accent is a more neutral variant on the North American one, so ours is closer to the "average"? Or is it that we watch so much TV, we've soaked up the generic television accent? Hmmm. Maybe a bit of each.

I don't think I stand out here as being glaringly Canadian, but who knows. Today someone noticed. My cover is blown.