I had a N'yawk accent until I served in the military and spent some time with a lot of Southerners and in the South. while I haven't adopted the accent in full...I do use a lot of the phraseology. (Some how or another, it is now important that when I use you to refer to multiple people, I specifiy that I mean them all.) Its a great way to communicate.
grew up in north dakota and lived in georgia for 3 years, now i have the Uff-Dah Y'all thing going on!