American accents

When I was young it was unusual for people to move far from where they were born. That is no longer the case as everyone is now from somewhere else and with that the distinctiveness of accents seems, at least to me, to have been greatly diluted. Various regional word choices such as bag vs. sack or pop vs. soda can still give people away but even that is less and less an obvious identifier than it once was.

I have always had a natural unconscious chameleon-like ability to blend in accent-wise to where ever I happen to be and that includes different languages. I was once aggressively challenged in Germany when I said I was from the USA. The drunk German refused to believe me because I did not sound American. OTOH I once spoke with someone on the telephone when I was living and working in Alaska. They later asked a co-worker about me and said I sounded like a California surfer dude so maybe I’m simply not self-aware.

Well, American accents don’t differ as much as the crazy accents in parts of your country. I mean really, the lion was dozing on the train from King’s cross to Dundee (where I had lion-y business) and I was awakened by some weirdos from Newcastle.
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I think they apologized for bumping me and said something respectful like “ooo…that’s a stylin’ suit” but it certainly didn’t sound like English. Seemed like nice enough folks even if they just kinda babbled at me. I nodded and shared my Tennessee whiskey because I’m a generous lion.
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And don’t get me started on the accents in the other crazy countries on your island home. I think that the accents north of the border are just a way to make it impossible to tell whether or not they’re all drunk on that Scotch whisky. I like it. ROAR!!!

And then there’s those crazy wackos with the Scouse accents. This lion was just in Liverpool where he had some fun, but I’ve just gotta say that it’s frickin’ hard to communicate well enough to get ‘em to put some delicious wildebeest in that stew. I ended up giving up and getting a curry. Hell…I couldn’t even get a wildebeest butty. What’s up with that?
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Also, the guy they had playing the Cavern Club did frickin’ Oasis covers. I mean yeah…I get that Oasis wanted to be the frickin’ Beatles but if this lion goes to the Cavern Club he wants to hear “I Want to Hold Your Hand” twenty times in a row. Leave the Champagne Supernova in Manchester. ROAR!!!

Even within regions there's variations. In NY for example, a Brooklyn accent is distinct from the rest of NYC. And in the south a Georgia accent is not a North Carolina accent.

American newscasters used to be taught to speak with a Midwestern accent because it was seen as the most "neutral" American accent. I don't really agree with that because they definitely have an accent. So does Baltimore. And Cali still has that whole valley girl/surfer bro twang.

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Every states accent

^^ Brooklyn isn’t an accent, there’s more of us than any of the other boroughs, they got accents, we speak perfectly
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I spent the first 45 years of my life in California. I was a huge cultural change moving to Georgia back in 1987. I had a hard time understanding natives on the phone. I could read their lips in person

But like it was pointed out everyone is from some where else and I personally can't identify from where they came. One stripper thought that I was from New York because of my accent. I didn't even realize I had an accent.

Is there any place in the U.S. where y"all is not used?

I know NY has one and the South as well. Any others? Can you tell what State someone is from by the way they talk?

Oh man, there are lots more accents. The midwest has a totally different twang and even vocabulary. New England accents are much different than New York, and Maine is a special accent of it's own.

That said, I think it's nothing like in Britain where 50 kilometers away and boom people talk completely differently. (Like the difference between a Glaswegian and Edinburgh accent.... or the difference between Liverpool and Manchester. Or even east London versus west!)

I think sometimes you can guess someone's region. Like if you were to order a "pop" instead of a "soda", I might be like... did you grow up in the midwest? One interesting difference is how English speakers navigate the lack of a plural for of you.... like:

Britain: you all or you lot
NYC: yous guys
Philly/New Jersey: youse
Western PA: Yinz
South: y'all
Texas: all y'all

But then, as others have mentioned, many Americans move around, so our accents are often weird amalgamations of several.

When I spoke in front of a big group of people in my industry from all over the country, I was surprised how many commented on my strong distinct accent. I grew up in Philly. We don’t have a pretty accent or one that’s easy to imitate, but I realize it’s different easy for someone to place you. Baltimore the same in that respect. think that’s also the case for NY, New England, Va (the South in general) and Chicago/Midwest. They’re the big ones that come to mind for me.

I grew up in southern California and New Mexico. But people think I sound like Im from northern California or the Northwest. Then some think I sound like Im from Compton 😂

So yeah. The country is pretty mixed up and people are from all over. Accents blend

Personally. I like the Native American reservation accents in the South West.

I have a job where I talk to people at various army forts around the country on the phone so I get to hear all the different American accents. As a Indiana native, I never thought of myself as having an accent but I have been told by people in other states I do have one. The only accent variations in my state are class based ones. My middle class accent sounds a little like a Humphrey Bogart gangster character to upper class people here but sounds a little like an English aristocrat to lower class people here. Middle class people here have never said I have any kind of accent.

Londonguy, even though this is a strip club site, I’m glad you brought this up, as I am fascinated by the variety of people’s accents. The U.S. is a huge country and there are many, many different accents here.

Where you’re from (I’m speaking of the U.K. generally), which is small in comparison, I am constantly amazed at the differences in how differently people speak there. Irish, Welsh, and Scottish accents are very distinct from one another. Even in England, there are so many different accents, a lot of which (correct me if I’m wrong) have to do with class/social status. I remember Fiona Hill, former high-level U.S. government expert on Russia, saying she emigrated to the U.S. to become a citizen and work because even though she is smart and highly educated, her lower-class accent (she grew up in rural northeast England where her father was a coal miner) meant that she would never ever get a decent job in the U.K.

As PAWG_Patrol said, “Even within regions there's variations.” Boston accents are somewhat similar but in some ways very distinctly different from how natives of Providence, Rhode Island, speak, and they’re only an hour south. Same with Portsmouth, Maine, which is an hour north of Boston. And on and on throughout the U.S.

I have lived in seven different states as an adult. I grew up in the Midwest, with extended periods of time in two of those states, a summer in Tennessee during college, and have lived in four different East Coast states, mostly since 1998.

I grew up 40 miles from Chicago, and though I did have certain aspects of that “Chicago” accent, my accent differed from that in one very specific way: where I’m from, we pronounced Illinois as Ellinois, milk as melk, Wisconsin as Wesconsin. No one from Chicago speaks that way. And I only came to realize that as an adult and had moved away. And I have trained myself not to do that anymore!

There are a lot of people in the Midwest with southern accents that are more pronounced than some of the southern states I’ve lived in. In downstate Ellinois, sorry, Illinois, there’s a small town that the locals pronounce as “Tar Heel.” This is not to be confused with North Carolina, the Tar Heel State. The Illinois town they call “Tar Heel” is actually spelled Tower Hill, but you wouldn’t know that to hear the natives talk.

I love the variety. Vive la différence!

There are at least 8 major dialects, and apparently may be as high as 30.

Hawaii, Louisiana and Appalachia all arguably have their own accent.

Of course sometimes the difference between two dialects is disagreement on how to say one vowel sound.

@londonguy: Hundreds. 🤣🤣

@pawg. Midwesternets have a twang and say no through their nose. The west not cali is nuetral, vermont/new hampshire old timers have an accent so thick.... and the most unique is one you mentioned. baltimore and delaware