Proof That Canadians Are More Polite Than Americans
Canadians embrace politeness, maybe nowhere more than in the Maritimes. “Sorry” is a cultural touchstone here.
It’s always been assumed that Canadians are more polite than Americans. Now new data from two doctoral students at McMaster University proves it. At least when it comes to Twitter.
They’ve compiled millions of tweets from Canada and the United States and compared the top 10 per cent words most likely used by Canadians to those used by Americans.
Canadian most frequently use words are things like “amazing,” “great,” “beautiful” and “favourite.” What’s more, “agree” is a Canadian favourite. “Habs” and “Leafs” were there, along with “hockey.” So was “Raptors.”
The words that show up in American tweets include “damn,” “hate,” “ass,” “hell,” “annoying” along with some ugly racial slurs.
But are we really surprised?
Check out the site built by McMaster University’s Daniel Schmidtke and Bryor Snefjella to compare other word usage.