'Resistance to other accents as snobbery' is an interesting point, pattyClink.

There are lots of things in that melting pot. But I'll leave aside the strange notion that Americans who travel internationally and can speak other languages can have such behaviour held against them in elections. Most 'catters would not place high value on such isolation.

My experience of regional accents from within the US is that some are almost as difficult (for me as an outsider) to understand as Glaswegian; I pick on them only because the reputation of that accent is that it is very difficult for outsiders to grasp. But we don't 'see' many of those US regional accents on film or mainstream TV and our only likely experience of them is via documentaries from within the US. So there seems to be an aural 'dumbing down' going on and I suspect it goes on in Britain and Oz as well; it may be more noticeable from the US because there is so much more from the US.

And your point about speaking too rapidly was reinforced on Oz TV recently. In Oz, we're approaching national elections and a major issue is likely to be Industrial Relations, as the governing coalition has introduced legislation that wipes out much of what has been gained over the last 150 years by workers. The union movement brought three Americans (at least two, and possibly all, were from South Carolina) for a visit so they and we could compare the US and the Oz experiences. In an interview towards the end of their visit the comment was made by one of the visitors that they had trouble with the rapidity with which Australians spoke; it impeded their ability to understand the accented English. I've never heard that comment from English-peakers from other Anglophone countries.

One of the interesting things (for me) about Mudcat is that 'catters express themselves in whatever argot they feel at home with. And most of us type sufficiently slowly for the rest of us to have no trouble reading.

Cheers, Rowan