to admit it, yes. My perception of people is sometimes affected by their accents.

They give them a southern accent. Hard not to have automatic prejudices about any kind of variance from the generic accent.

Clever?

ahm jus' gabbin 'boot them hoity-toity Anglish, them uz wans things dun fasser than dreckly!

Or perhaps I'm just passing the time with good company ...

People in New York think I'm slower, somehow, because of my accent - that is, until they get to know me.

I am from NY, my parents had very thick accents and I definitely think of them (and my other relatives) fondly as "quirky". I always think of Brits as being incredibly intelligent and Southern women as being very sexy (southern man accents don't do it for me though).

and I find some intriguing. However, I definitely judge people based on their spelling and grammar.

I have to admit -- I perceive certain Southern accents as less intelligent until proven otherwise. I now that's not fair, but I do. Stephen Colbert was aware of this tendency and trained himself to have a generic American broadcast accent at an early age (he's from South Carolina).

And have to prove your not "one of them" rw Southern folks.

When I overhear people, almost always men, talking with a deep South drawl, and talking up Romey or Santorum. I really wonder it they ever made it past the 3rd grade.

here several weeks ago. Because I know I do it, I try to mitigate it. But deep down inside, I totally do it.

But I do get hung up on a British accent
even listening to a British accent that the Brits
consider "uncultured" sounds good to me.

I think different accents have different plus and minus qualities

After listening to most people I get a feel for whether they are
liberal/open/curious or closed/conservative and ignorant

(now I'll get 10,000 comments back abourt the words I've chosen
but I imagine the most angry will identify with the ignorant conservatives!)

Let's see what happens, shall we?

If this gets blocked it's because I didn't stick that "sarchasm" thingie in here! Oh well, had to happen some time!

Unless the british person happens to be a comedian, I am not crazy about british accents.

But I dislike Australian accents even more! South African sounds grating, also.

Edit to add: what's the sarcasm about? I didn't see anything sarcastic in your post. I'm just replying to it calmly.

sit well in the ear. Something about a woman with an Irish accent is very attractive to me.

Oh, you think people in the USA have "bad" accents? I cannot have a conversation with this man. I just yes him to death because I simply cannot understand what in the world he is saying. It sounds like he is swallowing every single word.

For the most part we could understand her, but when she got excited or animated about something she was completely unintelligible to us. She was a lot of fun though.

He invites half the neighborhood to his St. Andrew's Party, wears his kilts, plays the bagpipes, and even serves HAGGIS! I only wish I could UNDERSTAND him.

Just part of the puzzle that includes vocabulary, dress, overall appearance, and other information that forms a first impression. There is nothing wrong with putting the pieces together, the problems come when we refuse to adjust to new pieces or add pieces that aren't really there.

and everywhere I've moved, people have wanted to "hear my accent." I lost most of it when I moved away. I don't care about peoples' accents in the slightest anymore. I used to make fun of the "hicks" from Oklahoma when I first moved there...until I developed a bit of an Okie drawl.

A most interesting thing is to spend enough time in a foreign country listening to a language other than English. You can eventually hear the different accents there.

language accents. My daughter is a fluent Spanish speaker. She has lived and travelled in South and Central America. She talks about the different Spanish accents there. She says the Chileans are very hard to understand. She loves her first Spanish teacher, from high school. She says her former teacher has a Midwestern, but good, Spanish accent. She means that native speakers would understand her teacher very well. She sounds very natural.

I don't get too hung up on regional accents. I am more likely to judge grammar. If someone uses poor grammar, I don't care where they come from. And if every other word is "like," "yanno," "yanno wut I'm sayin'", or "fuck," I start to judge them. I care about spelling. Of course, we all make typos, and certain errors are common. But I do judge people on their written communication. People are staying in school longer these days, and should be learning something.

I don't always like it that I am so judgmental. But that is my honest answer.

it's bizarre. Part of it, I think, is idiomatic expressions and pronunciation of certain letters (like it is here). But you should here provincial Mexicans make fun of those from Mexico City. It's pretty humorous.

Don't get me started on grammar. I'm a professor. I don't know if grammar is not being taught, or what, but let me just say I'm not old at all, and I learned grammar in middle and high school. My students do not write well.

Texas accent. It depends on how I feel about the person.

My favorite professor in college had a very mellow North Carolina accent. Listening to his voice giving a lecture was like sipping really fine bourbon.

the people closest to me. So Moyers kinda soothes me. But really it is the content of his message that is most pertinent.

I also adore Jim Hightower!

Saw it years ago and it studied the different accents. The Tennessee accent (there are three, none of them sounding like Scarlett O'Hara) from the east is derived from the Irish and Scottish brogue. It is pretty thick and I have had to watch what comes naturally. My kids grew up in Nashville and live on the west coast but no one thinks they are southern.

understand what the person is saying because of it. I have to listen very carefully in order to catch and decipher all that is said.

Something about them. They seem to have a wider range of communication, since people don't get offended by what they say. It's how it's said that matters.

We Americans seem to be more constipated in our understanding of the English language.

All these people from all over the world with different ideas, likes, questions and answers. Delivered in the south Mississippi drawl or the Yankee whatever you call it to someone like me who talks like a real southern okie boy. Anyways that was the neatest part of my service time. Prior to the navy my world existed within a 25 mile radius at most of where I was born.

To answer your question, I try to not let it happen. Most of my relatives live nearby so its a tad different for me but I can see how it sure could though.

I had a good friend from Boston and man o man we sure had some fun with our different way of talking
I think it possibly helped to keep the tensions down where we were because we would laugh and make fun of each other, all in fun mind you, because we were different and it made everyone more relaxed. More open to the togetherness that being different brought to us as a whole.

On the other hand, I do not notice what people are wearing, how they look, etc. so much. (Unfortunately, I don't always pay much attention to what I am wearing or how I look, and other people judge based on physical appearances so that is bad for me.)

I am not a visual person.

But it isn't the accent that matters to me. I love the different accents. It is the voice quality, what I hear in terms of tension in the body and aggression or passivity in the personality just from hearing the voice. I hear whether a person is sincere, lying, knowingly lying. It's just the way I relate to the world.

I like to look for certain types of outsiders within any group, so a person's accent or birthplace doesn't matter too much to me.

i have interest in history and different places, cultures etc so it makes me think of some stuff i know and i can ask them about it.

i have relatives from many different countries so i am kind of used to it. when i was a kid though i remember laughing at some relative from australia and his accent.