You’ve got to listen to this guy for a while to appreciate the accent; he has Maryland plates on the car he’s working on, and so the Baltimore accent should be correct.
I found this a month or so ago as I was preparing to replace my own water pump and to be honest I’ve never heard this exact accent before. On the other hand the video was amazingly helpful, and of course I understood everything.
I can’t look at youtube at work, but there is a segment of Snoop buying a nail gun at a Home Depot type store that is hilarious. The salesman is showing her a nail gun that uses a cartridge and she starts talking about shooting people with different caliber guns and you can tell he doesn’t have a clue what she’s saying. Worth checking out.
He doesn’t have an accent, though, at least not anything notable.
Go ask one of the Aussies or Brits in this thread whether he has an accent. 
Although it’s not too far from the General American accent, There are definitely non-standard features of Philadelphia talk, although my personal speech is missing a lot of these because of my unintentionally pedantic style of speaking.
I do say the “flat a” funny in limited contexts (mostly before the letters “n” and “m”). I was trying to get rid of this, but found that people couldn’t understand me! :eek: One day, I asked someone where I could find a “scanner” and they were like “What? I never heard of a scanner. What’s that?”. I said “You know, for scanning documents into a computer.” “Oh! Yeah, you mean a scayanner. Yeah, there’s one on the 3rd floor.”:smack:
Fair point. Also, I’m from Philly as well, and grudgingly admit that I’ll probably never fully get rid of that accent, so to make myself feel better I pretend there’s no such thing.
Also I know I make myself sound retarded when I very carefully over-pronounce wah-ter, but if I don’t it becomes “wooder,” so really I sound stupid either way.
What the deuce?, are you a native Philadelphian? The wiki article you just linked to states:
This jibes with my own experience as well. I was born in Philadelphia, raised and went to college in the near suburbs, and then lived for three years in Maryland, and I have difficulty distinguishing between the Philly and Baltimore accent. (I don’t have a thick Philly accent, either – I don’t say “wooder” for “water” or “beeyouteeful” for “beautiful”, for example – probably because my parents aren’t native Pennsylvanians.)
Anyway, to me the Philly and Baltimore accents are a lot alike. (Maybe the Philly accent is more nasal.) What differences do you hear?
I grew up “close enough” to Philly. Since many of my childhood friends say “wooder”, I think I can qualify.
I’m not sure why you have trouble distinguishing the accents of the two cities, maybe because you are too used to both of them. Regardless, the Baltimore accent I’m complaining about is the really, thick mushy accent that I found in a few encounters, not the “standard” Baltimore accent that you can easily find on youtube.
While I would like it to be clear that I personally believe that Australian’s have the most hideous accent that is possible (I have to say that…I’m a KIWI!) when I was travelling the accent that made people sound incredibly stupid was the Kiwi accent!
I love our accent-AT HOME- away from home we sound as thick as pig shit (and that’s through KIWI ears!).
I can’t understand how American’s understand the ‘Flight of the Conchord’s’ boys…I love the way they they stayed true to our daft accent!
I will say it…the New Zealander’s accent makes them sound simple (Not as bad as Aussies though!).
ITT: posts that you read to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire music.
So that those of us raised in parts of Missouri (pronounced Muh 'zurrrrr ee) have something to rest on when we talk. I’ve gotten rid of most of my hick accent, but I just can’t shake the over-pronunciation of the R. I know that to many native Chicagoans I sound like an idiot from the boonies, but hey, thick Chicago accents give me the impression that the person is uneducated (and I do know that’s not true).
Surely we all can agree that Geordies sound like idiots, no? 
So, can I bump my own response regarding the Baltimore accent and the example I provided that no one wants to comment upon. 
That’s the “normal”, comprehensible Baltimore accent in your video. The accent I’m complaining about is the twisted, incomprehensible accent you find in some isolated areas, closer to the “Snoop” video that someone posted earlier.
That video was very educational, thank you. 
There is a noticeable difference between the Philly and Baltimore accents after all, it seems – in B’more it’s more “wa(r)ter” than “wooder”. Here’s another classic Baltimore accent.
Do people really find these incomprehensible, though?
Chris Matthews is from Philadelphia. And here’s another example of the Philly accent. The vowel sounds are similar to the Baltimore accent…both regions “smear” them, to my ear. “Light” becomes “luh-ight” and "don’t " becomes “deh-on’t”.
(These really are some ugly accents, aren’t they? :o)
Bret: I’m in a band.
Woman: Cool. What’s your name again?
Bret: Bret.
Woman: Brit?
Bret: Bret.
Woman: Brit?
Bret: Bret.
Woman: Brit? Like, like Britney?
Bret: Ah, nah um, B-R-E-T
Woman: Oh, Bret.
Bret: Yeah.
Woman: It just sounds like Brit. I like your English accent.
Bret: New Zealand.
Woman: Oh, from New Zealand?!
Bret: Yeah.
Woman: I hear it’s beautiful. Um, there’s vikings there right?
Bret: Ahhh…yeah.
I for one have encountered the accent that I believe the OP is referring to. It’s not very similar to the Delaware or Philly accent at all to my ears. My recollection is that it was described to me as a specifically South Baltimore accent and my god it was fascinating. I’ve got a good ear. I can usually understand someone if they’re speaking some variety of English, whether I’m in the deep south or Downeast Maine; I can usually even decipher a thick Jamaican patois. But this “South Baltimore accent”, which I’ve only encountered a couple of times, was a mystery to me. I couldn’t begin to reproduce it. I was hanging out in Fell’s Point with my brother in the late 90’s and we were inevitable lured into a tavern that advertised a seven and a half hour happy hour. Who could resist? The bartender, an attractive and charming woman, spoke with what was to my ears a completely incomprehensible accent, and my brother, who’s got a master’s degree in linguistics, fared only slightly better. We’re both polite sorts, and got through the conversation without letting on that we had no idea whatsoever what she was saying to us and ordered a couple of Yuenglings. Good times.
I don’t know that I can remember this bizarre dialect enough to even describe it. I remember at the time I thought it sounded like a combination of every other accent I had ever heard. When pressed by my friends to be more specific, I described it as the result of an unholy union between a heavy southern drawl, a thick Aussie accent, a little dose of Virginia, and, I don’t know, Swedish or something. Should you ever chance to hear it, you’ll know.
Yankee girls say, “You may.” Southern girls say “Y’all may.” Great for team morale.
I have a very thick, very pronounced Texas twang. People have made fun of me for my accent. I’ve developed an effective way of dealing with those people. I simply say “Fuck y’all.”
What a great scene…
For the record, most of New England does NOT sound like that. Only eastern Mass, parts of New Hampshire, and parts of Maine have that “where did my R go?” accent to varying degrees.
Most of the people I know from the northeast (I’m including parts of NY and NJ in here as well) have almost no accent. And I’m not just saying that because we all have the same accent and we don’t notice, there really is hardly anything there at all.
I’m glad I’m not the only who’s encountered this abomination.