All A-Boot Words, Eh?

Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone! Or, as they call it here in Toronto, May 5th. I don't know if there are any festivities going on today, but I be pretty sure that it won't be as popular as it was in Los Angeles. Today I thought that I would address a common Canadian stereotype: the odd pronunciation of the word, "about." Now, granted I haven't talked with a lot of different people up here, but I have listened to the radio and watched the TV and when Canadians talk, they don't say "A-Boot." At best, they say "A-Boat." People do, however, do say "eh." I think it's cute. I'm just saying make sure you get your stereotypes correct, 'kay? The much more surprising alternate pronunciations are for brandnames. I give you the case of "Mazda." You know Mazda, right? The automobile manufacturer? Well, I was under the impression that it was pronounced "Mazda" with an "a" like "mama." But I repeatedly hear commercials with the "Mazda" pronounced like the "a" in "can." So, that's a little weird. Equally weird is that other commercials pronounce "Chrysler" like "ChryZler" with hard "z." You know what I mean, eh?