[jj]

fine observation, jove

if i "hear" you right, i wouldn't call it a canuck accent thing but i know of other singers that naturally bend a one syllable lyric ..or take a 2 syllable word and ride it into 3 or 4

but what you're really talking about might be the phonetics of the "i"....there is the soft "i" as in pIck, there is the hard "i" as in mIke and then there's what i call the lightfoot "i" (aka, the maritime "aye")...there's also the lightfoot "a" "e" "o" and "u"...and always "y"

aside: Betty is used in a few GL tunes....i imagine it was a special gal or just a common name surrounding him growing up in those parts....anyhow, my middle sis (Betty-Ann) moves to Orillia decades ago...much to my surprise, years later everyone up there calls her Liz...anyhow, i wasn't really going anywhere with that