Travel is certainly the key as Pete pointed out – and in the case of the U.S, the geographical size often makes if prohibitive to exposure and conducive to isolationism. Texas is the size of France for gods sake, and in generations to come, I suspect that regional accents will start to be classified as dialects as they are in the U.K. and elsewhere. There is such a breadth of variety here, that most Americans will probably never leave their country as traveling across a single State can take as much as 10 hours. In 10 hours you could see the ¾ of the North Island of New Zealand.

The fascination that Mid-Westerners have with (foreign) accents is one of pure curiosity. They do, however, insist that they have a “neutral” (American) accent, and quantify it by quoting that news announcers from around the U.S are sent here to “flatten-out” their accents.

You will get some resistance to that theory from the Voice-Over community – and anyone who has even dabbled in that field will tell you that Mid-Westerners do indeed have an accent and that that accent carries with it a certain perception from other Americans - on the coasts in particular. Not at all unlike the perception Mid-Westerners themselves have of a Southern accent.

I have a certain fondness for all accents and dialects – excepting of my own, so apologies for the long post. I think it’s part of “the spice” and, I guess too that that’s what makes that grass look so green…

If your attorney friend thinks Americans have no accent, then he has certainly never traveld to rural Georgia, upstate Maine or anywhere in the Lone Star State or Oklahoma.
I’d be willing to bet there are as many “internal’ accents in this country (based on region alone and not national origins of immigrants) to outnumber those of other countries.
Going further, the smart money is betting your attorney friend has never ventured beyond the limits of the Kansas City “metro.”

To everyone else in the world -

Sorry my fellow Yanks are such jackasses (and my apologies for casting aspersions on jackasses). But that’s what happens when you live a life with cultural blinders on. I’m doing my best to help educate the Irish-American ones, but a fella can only do so much.

“Do other countries think that Americans have accents?”

I chuckled, which upset him, as he thought it a serious question.
“Yes, they do…” I told him, but then I learned that it wasn’t a question afterall - it was a license for him to tell me that all the rest of the world had accents and Americans didn’t.
His rationalization of this boiled down to the fact that the U.S is the center of all creation so therefore, everything else was a variation. (Foreign policy anyone?)

“Well then, what do they think of our accent…”

It went very quickly downhill from there as I learned that people often really don’t want to hear the answers to questions they pose.

Conor, you’re very negative. Old age? The first half of your suggested response I think I’ll use, though.

And Yes I’ll do the follow-up post - that was what I was alluding to in the answers I didn’t list i.e. they were all guesses at what I was about to be told.

But I’m not good with deadlines, so don’t go holding your breath, as Kiki Dee said.