THanks for posting the article. I've always been fascinated by accents, and having lived all over the country have heard alot of them (and unfortunately or fortunately tend to pick them up rather easily). For the most part, everyone is pretty easy to understand (even those fast talking yankees!) however, even after living for 9 years in E. TX I still found a number of people from LA (altho not NO) SO difficult to understand. It is as if they don't move their lips much, and the run words together and don't enunciat ending consonants or something.
susie