your American accent.

My friend linked me to this online YouThink quiz where you can see what kind of regional accent you have by answering questions about how you pronounce certain words and make vowel sounds.

According to this quiz, I have a "neutral" accent (because you can't not have an accent). International Dialects of English Archive hosts an amazing audio archive of people speaking English in different dialects. The recordings are tagged with the gender, age, background and occupation.

I adore Southern accents, I think they sound endearing. However, different accents are associated with preconceived notions on level of intelligence and especially living in Houston, I encounter a lot of similar stereotypes about "rural Texans". This PBS article discusses this issue, with a demonstrative example of sample population surveys on accents. Here is a map of regions rated for the "correct English-ness" by about 150 Michigan residents, with 9 being the most correct:

See how Michigan ranks at the top?

Here's a representative drawing of the United States by one of the participants:

At least he drew Texas correctly?

Now look at these rankings for "pleasantness" of regional dialects by Auburn students (in Alabama):

Most pleasing to ears? Alabama, of course.

Just because a region is associated with a high level of [insert whatever you associate with lower intelligence: younger marrying age, more single mom's, violence, theft, etc] does not mean you can make generalizations about someone speaking that region dialect. But it is always interesting to analyze someone's accent and hold off confirming your guess until last minute. I had a physics professor whose accent was hard to pinpoint- Southern? Australian? We finally asked her, and turns out I had met my first South African.

Also, did you know that English is not the "official language" of United States?