I think I’d say I speak general American or California English.
I want to say the same, but if you’re talking dialect, I’ve picked up SO much crap from reading such a wide variety of stories my whole life that my language is peppered with stuff no one’s probably actually SPOKEN in dozens or hundreds of years. Also, if I don’t pace myself, my speech is rapid-fire. Luckily it’s clear and understandable, just…freaking fast.
Accent wise…I grew up outside Chicago and I probably have more nasal overtones than I think I do. Though I haven’t been told that in a couple of decades, so maybe time in Virginia softened that up a bit. One can hope!
I’ve mentioned here before that I worked very hard to lose my SoCal accent (not so much “valley girl” as "surfer gir"l, but still obnoxious). Apparently when drunk I take on a slight English accent, I guess due to having an English boyfriend and acquaintances. I don’t use English slang or anything but in my effort to be US neutral I speak carefully and I guess it comes out pseudo British. I’m working on *that *now.
I speak what is considered “Mainstream American English” according to the fancy linguists at school, just good ol’ Midwestern English. I have some accent variation like a stress on the ‘a’ sounds as in ‘cat’, ‘apple’, ‘Alaska’ but nothing too extreme such as in the upper peninsula where it gets more Canada-y like “rum” for “room” or “aboot” for “about.”
This.
California English, with some Midwestern overtones on some words (from my Iowa/South Dakota grandparents).
California English it is…like totally, dude. (born and raised in San Diego)
I speak the King’s English as it was meant to be spoken–with a Southern drawl.
A mixture of the generic Midwest accent and the Arkansan hillbilly accent. Some people say I sound more like I’m from Southern Missouri.
Here’s a sound file from a while back when I was trying to restart one of those recording threads.
Canadian, apparently.
Bartender in Chicago had me pegged with only “Vodka martini with a twist, please”
I still think I sound generic midwest us, even if I grew up in French, and live in Calgary. I learned my English watching American TV, eh?
Well, my dad(and his sister, my aunt) have different Southern accents from my mother, who was born 340 miles away from them. My accent is probably somewhere between the two of them, so I’d say for me, general southern(my accent gets stronger when I’m tired or drunk).
Depends.
Everyday? Some sort of weird mishmash of Australian and generic American English accent, with Australian prevailing more and more every day.
On the phone with my mom? Upper-midwestern American (Michiganish) with some Southernisms thrown in. I spent a decade in Michigan, my mom is from South Dakota.
On the phone with my much beloved Grandaddy? I never left the fucking South (where I grew up and went to college), or so my accent thinks. Which is all a bit shit, because I took actual elocution lessons to get rid of that awful drawl.
I’m an accent chamelion, and I hate it. I actually blame the elocution lessons for that.
I think I sound pretty standard Australian, but sometimes people think I’m English (I’ve never lived in England). I used to have a definite American accent from having lived there as a child but I don’t get any comments about it any more, so I must have lost it. Just in the past year or two I’ve picked up a very flat and nasal A sound, and I’m trying to train myself out of that, because it’s horrible.
Canadian English, though more “American Midwest” than “Bob and Doug McKenzie.”
Didn’t there used to be a quiz for this?
speech accent archive: browse (interesting side link on English accents!)
American Standard English, with a little bit of Yosemite Sam thrown in.
Same here. Spent my first 54 years in San Diego. So I’d describe my accent as “normal.”
I speak American English like someone who is totally over-educated but also, you know, kind of drunk.
Home counties, old chap.
Although with quite a few american terms thrown in (trash vs rubbish etc)
I spent my first twelve years in Upstate New York, but I’ve been in Georgia more than 30 years. I have a southern accent, but not really a country accent. There are a lot of things I say with a pure upstate NY accent, too, especially basic things from childhood.
My husband teases me about my “yankee” pronunciation:
“We need HIEEE-MIEEELAGE-OIEEEL? No, it’s HAH-MAHLAGE-AWWLLL!”
British RP. I basically sound like the Oxford English Dictionary.