Accents - which do you love and hate?

[Anonymous]

I'm a Brit living here in DC and I'm often told "I just love your accent!" (BTW, I don't flatter myself because who opens conversation with "I just hate your accent"?) In return, there are so many US accents that I find appealing - Texan drawl, Noo Yawk, Kennedy-esque Boston - but when I mentioned some of them to my American friends, some winced and said they found them grating. Sure, there are a few UK accents that irritate me (Brummie, Liverpudlian, Essex) but Americans may love them. So which accents - American or other - do you just love and hate?

[Anonymous]

I like all accents, especially the ones I can understand. I think my least favorites are Vietnamese and Korean. I like the people just fine, it's just hard to understand them.

[Anonymous]

I am a Brit too and I like most accents if pushed to say, but I expect if I had newly arrived from the UK I'd be spending time thinking about it like you are, but I'm not...

[Anonymous]

Love: educated southern (Steel Magnolias), Texan, Spanglish, British, Irish, Italian and Colombian

Hate: uneducated southern (Honey BooBoo), poor urban/gangsta type speech patterns, rural Carolina, Bronx, French

Despise: white trailer park version of gansta type speech

[Anonymous]

Hate - strong southern. Oh, it just bothers me!
And Wis-cahn-sin. "Bother" does not rhyme with "father".
Love the "Bawww-stun" accent. Although sometimes sound "uneducated".

[Anonymous]

I like Liverpudlian b.c it reminds me of "Yellow Submarine" the movie. Love Welsh accents and Scottish too but I have no idea what Glaswegians are saying.

[Anonymous]

Loved true Boston Brahmin, but it is dying out. My neighbor growing up had it and it was sheer pleasure to listen to him talk. He was a High School history teacher at Boston Latin many many moons ago.

There are a few southern accents that I love too- If you have upper elementary school children pick up the audio version of "Love, Ruby Lavender" - those are fun. I like some of the New Orleans accents. I am partial to rural southwest Virginia too- some are really interesting to listen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a Brit living here in DC and I'm often told "I just love your accent!" (BTW, I don't flatter myself because who opens conversation with "I just hate your accent"?) In return, there are so many US accents that I find appealing - Texan drawl, Noo Yawk, Kennedy-esque Boston - but when I mentioned some of them to my American friends, some winced and said they found them grating. Sure, there are a few UK accents that irritate me (Brummie, Liverpudlian, Essex) but Americans may love them. So which accents - American or other - do you just love and hate?

Yeah, you just named all the American accents I can't stand. New York doesn't bother me as much but Southern drawl and the hardcore native Boston accent are awful.

I enjoy many accents on the British Isles but I cannot stand Essex or Cockney. I watched this TV series from Channel 4 called "Educating Essex" and the sound of teenagers whining in an Essex accent is horrible.

I don't know what to make of a scouse accent because I can barely understand it. So I guess I don't like it? I watched an interview once following a World Cup event that had comments from Jamie Carragher, who is a Liverpudlian, and Philipp Lahm, who is a native German speaker who can barely string three English words together fluently, but guess who I had a much easier time understanding? I felt like Carragher needed subtitles.

[Anonymous]

I love British (all), Australian, most European. Dislike Asian because they're a lot harder to understand. I dislike most southern, urban gangster type, and anything that sounds rural and uneducated... Like dropping g at the end of the word or adding an r to Washington for example. I'm from the west coast so we don't tend to have a strong accent in general (and I was told as much when I travelled to the uk a couple years ago.)

[Anonymous]

I like the Louisiana accent. I like my husbands accent too (Asian). I don't like the Baltimore accent.

[Anonymous]

I'm from NY, though I've been off the East Coast a dozen years now and my accent is very watered down (unless I'm angry) and I HATE the New Jersey accent.

In general I like all the Southern accents, EXCEPT when I'm in a rush, and then I don't have time for them to talk so slowly.

I like the Wisconsin, Chicago and other Midwest accents - it sounds like they're chewing their words.

I live in SF and don't dig the Mandarin and Cantonese accents - they strike me as very harsh, but maybe that's because I dislike seeing the old ladies yelling at everyone.

Am uncomfortable with German accents - this Jew is scared of Nazis.

[Anonymous]

What's with the cockney accent and always sounding like they have a lisp? I mean, Adele is rich now - can't she get a Madonna-style British accent going?

[Anonymous]

My least favorite accents are Liverpool, South Africa, Australia. South Africans speaking in English sound very grating and ugly, can't imagine how bad it is in the native language.

My favorite is the Welsh accent, the men sound just so genteel and sweet. The old school New York accent makes me laugh.

[Anonymous]

I don't like Maryland, Delaware, Philadelphia, South Jersey accents, or Pittsburgh. really dislike Pittsburgh. Dislike New Hampshire accent, as well. Southern accents are charming!

[Anonymous]

Love Irish.
Hate Australian.