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I was born in Texas, raised in the NY City suburbs, went to college in Texas and Boston, got married and moved to California for five years, then back to NY and then finally down here to Memphis. My father was raised in the deep south of rural Mississippi and my mother was raised on indian reservations all across the country, mostly in the west and south.

I have figures of speech and pronounciations from all over the county and words I use regularly from several American Indian and other languages. My accent, however, has been thoroughly homogonized by all of my moves plus a lifetime of listening to TV. I probably sound, on balance, like I'm from Omaha.

Regional accents are rapidly disappearing and I think it's a shame. There are many unique New York accents, Brooklyn being probably the most distinct. Then there's the unique north New Jersey "Joisey" accents thrown in for good measure. Boston accents and the rural Vermont and Maine accents have their charm and are distinct from the accents of the fishemen from almost the entire New England coast, which tend to have lots more in common with each other than they do with the inland accents of their own areas. You would hardly believe that someone with a classic Boston accent and someone with a Gloucester (pronounced "gloster") accent were from the same region.

Southern accents are often lovely but just as often annoying. I love the accents of the mountain west which have a surprising amount in common. The more recent "California hippy" and urban "ebonics" accents are simply annoying or sources of ridicule. And I don't care who it is or where they're from but I get livid when an otherwise intelligent sounding person says "axe" instead of "ask!"

Of course, it's often not how you pronounce something but the phrases you use.

"She lives three miles out on a two mile road" is about as southern as you can get and it doesn't require an accent to understand that. Then there's that uniquely New York way of saying "Hey, you!" Once you hear it you never mistake it for anything else. ;^>