You know what I've always had a problem with?  British people saying us Americans say 'aluminum' wrong.  WE invented the stuff, I think WE'RE the ones who get to say how it's pronounced!

FWIW, as an American who's met all of them, you can certainly tell all their accents apart.  England, having developed so long with shoes as the primary means of transit, developed a ton(ne) of accents.  It seems each city/population center has its own unique distinguishable accent.  The US, having grown up with much wider transit, has broader areas with the same accents.  You could probably live your whole life without hearing anyone talk any differently than you.

...


How do you figure Americans invented "aluminum"?

I've heard that too; though I always joke that the lack of accent was our accent.  Plus you have to admit that we speak Northwest Native better than most people (think of how many times we cringe whenever someone screws up Willamette, Champoeg,  or even geoduck; and don't forget the correct pronunciation of Glisan Street; who cares if it's historically wrong).  Oh yeah, and if pronouncing it "Orygun" is an accent, well accent away because that's how you pronounce our gorram state's name!!!

I've always heard this as well, and read it in various books growing up. Wikipedia states that "as the variety stresses vowels far less than other varieties, it is seen by linguists as the least accented form of English." It's a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective, because one of the side-effects of this seems to be a native, not always controllable, ability to pick up other accents fairly quickly. It varies from person to person, but most people I know who go out of the region for just a month or two come back with the accent of the area they were visiting, and are stuck with it for at least a week or so. I, personally, have the problem of unintentionally picking up - and sometimes getting stuck in - accents in movies I'm watching if I don't talk for the duration of the movie. I first noticed this when I got stuck with an accent for a few hours after watching The Secret of Roan Inish as a kid. More recently, I made my dad laugh his ass off after I watched a few hours of Lord of the Rings behind-the-scenes features without talking and then started talking to him in a garbled mesh of accents.

Certain Midwest California dialects are emulated by television personalities and seen as more "American" accents, however, because of the fact that they have distinctive accents...which allows them to be emulated, something a bit harder to do with the nearly nonexistent Pacific Northwest accent. Most American actors with a regional accent or foreign actors trying to achieve an American accent will try to emulate Californians to nullify their own accent, and American news anchors tend to study a dialect of Midwestern (I'm not sure which) to achieve a "universal" (read: American universal) accent. The Brits have their own version of this, unless I'm mistaken, in BBC English (not the proper name, I know, but the nickname is so much easier to remember), a dialect which seems to have been pretty heavily enforced on British television until relatively recently. Early to mid 90's, I'm guessing? I have a huge gap in my watching of British television. I watch a lot of old stuff - 60's through 80's - and when Doctor Who restarted, I got curious about the newer stuff...but the 90's are a big blank spot.

The Pacific Northwest does have an accent, weak as it is, and the more rural you get, the more accents you'll find. The larger the city, the less prominent accent you'll find in those who speak English as a first language and were either born there or have lived there a long time...but as you move out into farmland, or head further East in the region, you'll find accents. Emphasized by regional slang, a separate thing from accents but also being discussed in this thread. The Pacific Northwest still has lingering bits of Chinook jargon, for instance, that set it apart from other regions. These are little-used to nonexistent in more densely-populated areas, from what I've noticed, but more in use the more rural the area. For example, muckamuck (which evolved into the more popular mucketymuck) for an important person, potlatch (used interchangeably with "potluck" in my upbringing), iktus (used interchangeable with bupkus) and skookum (a word with diverse positive meanings that I've never used, but have heard used).

Wikipedia identifies the following as Pacific Northwest slang:
Never heard Beauty Bark, but I grew up calling it bark dust...is that not the common name elsewhere? News to me, to be sure.
I don't know squat about vehicles transporting forest workers. I may have heard this in passing.
I've never said "crick", and I've only heard it as I get close to Idaho. But, then, on the page with the slang, Wikipedia is going by the regional markers that count Idaho, Western Montana and Alaska as the Pacific Northwest. (Alaska? Really? That's its own damn region, even if you go international and count British Columbia as the Pacific Northwest.)
Mostly an old people thing, and everyone's got a different idea of what you can call a davenport...for some people, it's a futon, for others its a couch. Whatever.
To me, a grip is a type of grunt position on a film crew. Never heard it as an abundant amount.
Not sure if I've heard this one...possibly in passing. Seems to take its origins from a derogatory term in the British Isles. I like it, though. I think I'll refer to myself as a gyppo more often when I'm doing contract work. I'm taking it back, man! </Randal>
Heheheehehe. No idea why this is under "slang", as it refers to a movement in a particular area, but...yeah. The Jefferson thing amuses me.
Never heard this one...but I also know barely anything about the Wobblies. I suspect this term may be falling into disuse.
Heard this one. Never used it. I thought it was the name of a specific kind of tree.
Damn fucking straight it's pop. Fuck you "soda" people. Actually, I don't care what people use, but I get uppity when a pop vs. soda debate gets going, especially when people from other regions laugh at me for saying "pop" when they're in my damn region.
This...isn't a universal term? Really?
Again...this...sin't a universal term? Buh?
Heard this one, but I don't talk about snuff or dipping tobacco much myself.
...Okay, I know this one's more widely used around the country. Isn't it?
Not...universal? I actually say "register", but I hear lots of people say "till". My assumption, actually, was always that "till" referred to the specific part of the register that had the cash in it.
Lumberjacks are weird. IIIIIII'm a lumberjack and I'm okay...
Again, is this not a pretty nation-wide term used by younger folk? I'd be less surprised by this one than the other ones, but...still.
I always have to remind myself that Freddy's isn't everywhere. I go on vacation and I'm like, "Where's the nearest Freddy's?" Oh, right...purely a Western store. Not even near all of the West, either.


Random accent things for me, personally:
As far as ant/ont/aunt goes, my pronunciation varies.

My pronunciation of "route" (root vs. rOWt) varies, as well, but I've noticed that I lean toward "root" when involved with a physical object or location (Route 66, Route 5, etc.) and "rOWt" when I'm referring to the concept of a path to take, or a delivery route, etc. The odd thing in this is that internet routers fall into the first category, it seems, as I have to think to pronounce it "rOWter" so that I don't end up yet another ten-minute conversation about my pronunciation with whoever I'm talking to (usually taking that long because they think my pronunciation is ridiculous). When I'm not thinking about it, however, I tend to pronounce it "rooter", which makes everyone bring up Roto-Rooter. >.< Every. Damn. Time.

Lara: You have a bit of an accent, but hardly noticeable as being different...partially because we keep getting all these damn Californians moving up here with their accent distracting us. I've only noticed yours occasionally.

Coyote: The pronunciation of our state's name and the locales within is not an accent. Most of those names come from Native American languages, and we're simply pronouncing them correctly. We have the advantage of being a "newer" portion of the country, less recently settled by Europeans than other parts. So our names haven't gone through all kinds of corruption. The most corruption we have, at least that is obvious, are names and pronunciations derived from Chinook jargon, as that's a hodgepodge of languages for trading purposes.

So we don't have the confusion of, say, New Orleans...where you're wrong if you put emphasis on the leans, but then there's the battle between reading it as spelled with an emphases on the "o" or pronouncing it with the heavily accented regional "NAWlins". Neither of which are technically correct, as it's actually named after the French Orléans. For the record, as far as "NAWlins" is concerned...no. No, the English language does not need to conform to a pronunciation that is the product of a regional accent's take on a mispronunciation of a French name.

Edit: Also, I'm having a lot of fun browsing the Speech Accent Archive, listening to the same English phrase spoken in accents ranging from native english speakers in different regions of the world to non-native speakers. They list the age and birthplace of each speaker, as well as city of residence at the time of recording, and what other languages they speak...even if English is their native langage, as it can cause alterations to their native accent (I know I occasionally treat parts of words as if I were speaking Spanish, even though I've let a lot of my limited fluency fade).

I often wonder what people think of my accent.  I'm not sure what I sound like to other people, really.  If any of the folks that have talked to me want to weigh in on it, go ahead....I just don't think I have a strong accent of any kind, particularly for where I come from.

I have a friend from England who's like that.  You only hear the accent if he's drunk or pissed (yes, I am aware that "pissed" is British slang for drunk).

My brother...I don't know how he does it, but he has a gift for accents.  He'll hear five to ten seconds of a person with an accent talking and he'll know exactly where they're from.  It's creepy.  I've seen him start chatting with a stranger at a party, and after a couple of introductory questions ("Hi, how are you?  How do you know [host]?  Yeah, the soup is delicious...") say something like "Let me guess...England.  Eastern England, I'd say...around Ipswich?" and the person he's talking to left saying "How'd you know that?"

I love to listen to people with accents.  I don't know if it's because we don't really have one here, but I get absolutely entranced by people with accents.  There's a lovely elderly gentleman who shops at my store who has the most beautiful Irish brogue - I could listen to him talk for hours.  He calls me "lass."