Why do the English worry about accents?

[deleted]

@MisterZed: that's amusing. When I watch BBCA, I have to keep the closed captioning on for shows like Luther, Law & Order UK, Bedlam, Being Human, and such because so much of the dialogue is in dialect or colloquial language. Sometimes it's because I don't quite catch something because of the accent, sometimes it's a slang term that Americans don't use. Sometimes I even keep my laptop nearby with a Brit-slang website open.

I have Aussie friends that I see only occasionally (because we live halfway around the world from each other), and when we're together, the bulk of our conversations is often staring blankly at one another and saying, huh? There are times when we repeat ourselves 2 or 3 times, and then "translate" what we said into some version of English that we all understand. We constantly mock each other for having accents :) I feel like I'm learning a new language - now I know what POMs are and that all of them get knackered but only about half of them have knackers.

Unfortunately I think Southerners in the US are stigmatized for their accent. The assumption is automatically that anyone with a heavy Southern accent is an uneducated hick. I had a friend from TN who made a conscious effort to cover her accent while she was in DC. I myself am from ND/MN, and I do have a slight accent that comes out from time to time, but I also cover it as well in DC where I live now. I also don't want to come off as an uneducated hick, which I think is what people think when they hear someone speaking the English I grew up with. It's much the same prejudice as the Southern accent I think.

I had a friend who lived in New Orleans (I lost track of her after Hurricane Katrina - posted on craigslist and got a few replies from people who legitimately knew her but didn't know what happened to her) whose "accent" wasn't just in the way she pronounced words. A "dialect" may be different from a "standard" language in all 5 major components of language (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics). When my friend visited NYC, oh-my-gosh, she stuck out like a sore thumb - the same way I did when I was in Louisiana. New Yorkers are ALWAYS in a rush - the light turns green, you dash across the street. Actually, in NY, why wait til the light is green, just go when you can dash between the cars. Oh, to hell with the cars - let them avoid you and don't bother looking at the traffic while you're risking your life crossing the street on foot. My friend walked sooooooooo s-l-o-w-l-y it took us nearly a full minute to get across a typical Manhattan avenue. That, plus her Southern, gentle, slow-paced, softspoken speech just drove me nuts.

I think there is definitely an impression in the Northeast that Southerners are "slow," and unfortunately, "slow" often translates to "less intelligent." It's not a fair assessment - we just all have to accept that our styles are different, right?

Ooooh! Hark at mr la-di-bloody-dah!
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Only kidding, the trouble is people think of stereotypes even when thinking of their own region and expect people from that region to speak accordingly. The very fact you don't affects them obviously more than it does you.

How does the man who drives the Snowplough get to work?

Some countries use American English and some use British English depending on their foreign policy, history and neighbours; South Korea is American English and Hong Kong is British English.

The American accent came about because people were trying to remove the regional anomalies that occur in British English as they were trying to come up with a standardised form. 'library' vs 'lib'ry'.