Americans joke about the Canadian penchant for offering profuse apologies.

But maybe it’s not the apology itself that marks us as Canadians, but the way we say: "Sorry."

Winnipeg-born actress Tamara Gorski suggests that our pronunciation of that word is one of the Canadian giveaways, one that she endeavours to correct in a special workshop she has devised for Canadian actors working on American films.

"O" words such as "toast" and "sorry" are giveaways, Gorski says, because Canadians pronounce them with lips and mouths forward.

"The American accent is flat, like a pancake," she says, offering up an American pronunciation of "sorry" as "sah-rry."

Gorski offered a mini-workshop in American accents to movie writer Randall King at the Winnipeg Free Press News Cafe in this video.

For more on Tamara Gorski and her amazing career, read about her in the Saturday Arts and Life section of the Winnipeg Free Press.