For better and worse, moving around a lot growing up, though usually somewhere in shot of a Great Lake, never picked up a hard-core accent. Studying global dialects in college probably didn’t hurt much in keeping the Midwest flat intact, either. Can never get enough of Irish and Scots, too. Nobody does the low to high ranges better. Fave American: Texas, male or female.

When I was 22 I moved to Texas and lived there three years. Texans mocked my accent quite a bit. They loved to hear me say, “car.” With no conscious effort on my own, and much to my surprise, my accent completely disappeared. Now I sound like one of those accent-less, somewhere in middle America, news broadcasters. People can never guess where I’m from any more. It was very surprising to me how easily and unconsciously I lost my accent.

I have since lived in some different regions, and traveled to most. An odd outcome of losing my accent, kind of like getting bit by a radio-active spider; I am now very good at guessing where people are from based on their accents. I can distinguish New York from New Jersey, Connecticut from New Hampshire, Georgia from Mississipi, Texas from Arkansas…

When I was working for John Nolte and I heard his first podcast I sent him an e-mail and predicted that he was from either Milwaukee or Detroit, had spent time in Chicago and had lived in California for more than a few years. (The California part was common knowledge, but I would have known it had he not published the fact.) He was astounded. It was Milwaukee, not Detroit (which tend to be different), but his time in Chicago made his Milwaukee dialect sound a bit Detroit-ish.

I can’t tell much between California, Oregon, Washington or Arizona. There are some really different, regional dialects there, but I am not good at placing them. However, when I meet a transplated Californian I can usually guess that.

By the way, the best accent on an American woman is Georgian. Judging from what I’ve seen in the fairer sex, women prefer men with a Louisiana accent.