Happy Canada Day!

The sound you’re looking for is called “Canadian rising”. The sound americans hear as “oot” (as in “aboot the hoose”) really consists of a single pure vowell where most american dialects have a dipthong.

You say “about” with a dipthong–the ~out part comes out something like ow-oat, or maybe ow-oot. Canadians stay on the initial vowell all the way to the T. I don’t know why americans hear this as “oot”; to my ears, we start on the same sound you do, and ride it to the end of the word.

Everything you need to know about the Great Lakes area rural Canadian (And northern Michigander) can be learned from The Red Green Show.

Yeah, friends I’ve had from Canada tended to say oat for out and hoce for house. Then again, I hear it in the speech of people from New Jersey, too.