Which American Accent do you find the most appealing

[Marlys of Mull]

It's well known that many Americans love the Scottish accent. While in Scotland I had several comments on my specific American accent so I'm curious: which American accent, if any, do you find the most appealing?

There are many so I've tried to categorize them but there are even different accents within each of these regions.

New York
New Jersey
New England
Eastern
Southern
Mid-West
Northern Mid-West (similiar to Canadian)
Western
other

[Polwarth]

You missed out 'none of the above'.

[Scotsgait]

I doubt that many Scots would be able to differentiate to that level ! I can only distinguish between the southern drawl and others.

[Scottish_Republican]

Scotsgait is right - personally speaking, I can't hear much of a difference between most of the US accents, especially in the west.

There's an obvious north-south divide, but other than that, only a few places in the east seem to have distinct accents, e.g. the Bronx, Boston etc. Then there's a black accent. I doubt I could distinguish between New Yawk and New Joisey really, for example.

However, even so, that's probably more than most Scots could.

I have some sympathy with Polwarth's option too, but if I was going to go for anything, possibly the one that sounds "Canadian" (presumably not Newfy LOL!) - I've gone for that - someone non-American has to vote.

[dmlay]

Let me ask you Marleys, you are out west, correct? Can you hear the different dialects within the southeast or do we all sound the same to you? If you listen very very closely and can get past the drawl one can still hear the British influence in the southeast’s dialects and the reason is… far fewer non-English speaking immigrants from continental Europe settled in the South than in the northern colonies.

[Marlys of Mull]

Polwarth, I just KNEW you were going to say that, which is why I did not include that choice.

Scotsgait, I realize there may not be many Scots (or any other non-American) that could distinguish between many of the accents but I thought I would put a few choices out there for those few who can. I figured the New York and Southern would be the most recognized.

Good on you, SR, for being able to hear the Northern accent. Its not common elsewhere, i.e. I haven't heard many northerners move to other parts of the country like Easterners and Southerners do etc. and wondered how represented they were around the world.

dmlay, I do hear differences in Southern accents and dialects but wouldn't be able to tell from the accent where the person came from, just that they sounded different from others I've heard. I'm not sure I agree with the English influence thing, though. I hear more English influence in the New England accent than any other. Most of the differences in Southern accents I hear are ethnic and education related, but not always.

Yes, I'm from the West and waiver between urban educated western accent (which is nearly non-distinguishable) and a bit thicker rural accent when I'm relaxed and in repose.

While in Scotland, a cabby asked me where I was from and when I teased him that he couldn't tell, he said he could tell I was American but wanted to know specifically where. His sister-in-law is from Philidelphia and he knew how she sounded and could tell my accent was different. I though if a cabby could tell the difference, maybe some others could too and may have a preference.

[georgekidd]

I think a "None of the above" option should have been added. Or maybe "American Scottish" as in the accent used by Americans when trying to be Scottish (apart from James Doohan of course!)

Like most people I would probably be able to tell if someone was American, but not be able to pinpoint where in America they were from! But at the end of the day, the most annoying one is that which comes out of the mouth of the American tourist in Scotland when he's trying to tell everyone how Scottish he really is!