Inland North?
Of course, the missionaries were from New England but I sound nothing like the native Chicagoan in our office. 
The test accurately detected my southern accent. It’s pretty thick, I’m afraid, unless I really concentrate on my pronunciation.
That’s a Southern accent you’ve got there. You may love it, you may hate it, you may swear you don’t have it, but whatever the case, we can hear it.
Your result: The West
Duuuude, like, right on, this Northern Californian (with SoCal friends and relatives) says.
How does one get a Midland Accent? It seems to be the preferred accent, since newscasters typically have one.
Here are my answers to the questions:
‘cot’ and ‘caught’ - the same
‘don’ and ‘dawn’ - the same
‘stock’ and ‘stalk’ - the same
‘collar’ and ‘caller’ - the same
Does ‘on’ rhyme with ‘dawn’ or ‘don’? - rhymes with both
‘Mary’, ‘merry’, and ‘marry’ - All 3 sound the same (after a lot of talking to myself, I later changed the answer to ‘Mary’ sounds like ‘merry’ but not like ‘marry’; didn’t matter, still ended with a Western Accent)
‘pen’ and ‘pin’ - different
‘feel’ and ‘fill’ - different
‘about’ - ‘ou’ as in ‘loud’
‘bag’ rhyme with ‘vague’ - no way
So, if I want to be a news anchor, which words do I need to mispronounce? 
(I keed! I keed!)
My stepson is from Alaska and in dealing with him, his family, and various agencies in Alaska I have found Alaskans to have an accent that reminds me of the upper midwestern accent. It drives me nuts. His family is Native Alaskan so maybe the accent has something to do with that.
You definitely have a Boston accent, even if you think you don’t. Of course, that doesn’t mean you are from the Boston area, you may also be from New Hampshire or Maine.
Not surprising since I’ve lived in Mass all my life, but I really don’t have the typical Bostonian accent; it’s more New Englandy. The part I did find interesting though was the order of the rankings from next closest to furthest, which was:
The West
The Midland
North Central
Philadelphia
The Northeast
The Inland North
The South
Why was the West next and the Northeast almost at the bottom? Kind of odd, I thought. But I guess I’m not really sure what a “west” accent would sound like. I just figured Northeast would be closer because I border on an upstate New York accent.
“You have a Midland accent” is just another way of saying “you don’t have an accent.” You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
I’m from Florida, but I pick up eccentricities in my speech from Connecticut (my father) and Iceland (my mother).
The one person I’ve ever met from Philadelphia was a girl who said “HAW-ri-bull”
Also, it says that I’m from the Midlands, second choice, the West. All of those people who said that I don’t sound like I’m from the South were right, I guess. I was born and raised in Arkansas. Hmm.
The Arkansan quiz says that I’m 98% Arkansas.
Eh, okay, guys, this is a pretty bad quiz for determining what accent you have. In Wisconsin alone, there’s more variation than a quiz like this is able to handle. See, I’m from Wisconsin, and I call Pepsi, Coke, etc. “pop.” My friend Matt, from Milwaukee, calls it “soda.” And a water fountain isn’t ever going to be a bubbler, no matter how often those people from up north call it that.
This quiz told me I was from the Midlands, and I’ve never even been to Ohio. Probably the only way you’ll be classified into the right location with this quiz is if you have the most stereotypical accent of your location. The quiz misses a lot of the more subtle features of a local accent – for example, the nasalization of vowels in Wisconsin, that happens pretty much throughout the state, but not to the extent that the “ya der hey” folks do it. A more accurate quiz would be pretty damned long and probably not much fun to take.
rackensack, I answered the Arkansas test the way I normally would, since I figured the test was written by someone from the state. Who else would pay attention to us? 
Some of the questions did bring me back to when I first moved up here and someone asked me, (with the kindest of intentions) “Do you get Sesame Street in Arkansas?”
Arkansas Dopers, am I alone in referring to all soft drinks as “Coke?”
My test says Inland North, but when I am in Chicago or Wisconsin, no one mistakes me for a local. No one in Michigan claims me for local, even though I am. Everyone local says my family has a distinct accent that sounds vaguely English, but in England, I was routinely labeled Canadian. I think that I think in Inland North tones, but actually SAY something else.
I am compelled to grant the “family accent” hypothesis, because everywhere I work my coworkers crack up if a family member calls them and asks for me. I can’t hear it.
If I say them all by themselves going back and forth then I do that with Dawn to. But in normal speech they’re exactly the same for me.
So I took the test on whether I was a Northern or Southern Californian, but it just said I was confused. Pfft, I say. I have lived in the Bay Area my entire life, dammit.
According to the textbook for a History of English Language course I took in college (The Orgins and Development of the English Language by Thomas Pyles) modern people in New England and in the Appalachian mountains sound (pronouncation, not accent) the most like the British did during the colonial days.
But no one more so than in Cambridge, I bet 
However, I’m not sure which parts of England the colonists came from predominantly.
If the product in question is a Coca-Cola ™, a Diet Coke ™, or the store-brand equivalent thereof, it is “Coke”.
If the drink in question is any other (specifically known) drink, it is whatever that drink is called.
If we are discussing a generic fizzy carbonated, usually brown, but not always, drink, it is either a “drink” or a “soda”.
This is also coming from the Arkansan who is from the Midwest, according to your quiz.
I grew up saying Coke for any carbonated beverage…
100% True Arkansan here, according to that site’s (rather silly) quiz.
That’s true where I grew up in Texas, too. Even if we had no intention of ordering a Coke per se once we got there, if we intended to have a Pepsi or a root beer or whatever, we ALWAYS said, “Let’s go get a Coke.”
Boston accent. I put my flowahs in a vahse, my muthuh’s sistuh is my awhnt and once, while visiting Wisconsin, I was teased for referring to the founder of communism as Koll Mocks.
Inland Northerner here. Raised in Iowa in a mixed Northeast/Midwest cultural household. Influenced by schooling in Michigan and to some extent by travels in Canada, where I picked up a very round ow a few years ago.
I’ve been resident in Greater NYC for 17 years, but make an effort to resist local speech habits. I find they’re used as a subliminal key to your socioethnic identity, a game I don’t care to play.
It got me - spot on!
What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The Midland
“You have a Midland accent” is just another way of saying “you don’t have an accent.” You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
And I am from Southern Illinois.