1: You think it's perfectly safe to walk right into the middle of a busy street. After all, you're a
pedestrian -- they
have to stop, right?
2: On a related note, the police have stopped to let you jaywalk, and honked to let you know it's safe -- or just to say hello.
3: You call them "donairs," not whatever they call those things elsewhere. "Gyros," or whatever.
4: You know that "bookbag" is a not-entirely-accurate pseudonym for a kitbag. (I once dated a girl from Manitoba who wouldn't let me call my kitbag a kitbag. "It's a bookbag," she'd say. That's when I knew our relationship was doomed.)
5: You don't know what "wilderness" really is.
6: Someone says "The Bridge" in any context and you know exactly which one of the hundreds of bridges they mean.
7: You refer to your province by its acronym.
NB: This also applies for those from BC.
8: You pronounce any of the following words in the following ways:
- "Wash" /wαš/ as "worsh" /worš/
- "Battery" /'ba.tα.rι/ as "bachree" /'ba.tšri/
- "Out, about, house" /aυth/, /α.'baυth/, haυs/ as "Ewch, abewch, hewss" /ευtç/, /α.'bευtç/, /hευs/
- "Like, night, fight" /laιkh/, /naιth/, /faιth/ as "Loyk, noych, foych" /lΛιkx/, /nΛιtç/, /fΛιtç/ -- As in, "You wanna go ewt'n foych?"
9: You know what
really goes on in the
Burger King parking lot on a Saturday night -- foytn'.
10: You've never seen a mountain.
11: You've never seen a building more than ten storeys tall.
12: You know the geographical difference between "Out West" and "Up West."
13: You've actually been brainwashed into thinking that 1864 was a damn exciting time to be alive!
14: You think Halifax is a big city.
15: You think a bar where gay people go to drink is by default a gay bar.
16: You think a drive of more than an hour or two is too far to do regularly.
17: You've ever wanted to leave. Anyone who comes here from elsewhere will say it's the best place in the world to live -- but Islanders often get this impression that the rest of the world is better than their safe, if sometimes mediocre, cradle of paradise.