Trevor's comment about fishin'i' cut reminds me of a British humorist from some time back who based his act on being able to imitate accests from around the British Isles. He'd have the band play a brief passage from or about an area and then do a quick story in the accent of that area. One of his jokes was vary similar to Trevor's.

As to an earlier poster's question if an American could differentiate between various obvious accents, I think he could if he had spent some time there, and watched much television, although I suppose television has done a lot to smooth out regional accents in the UK. It certainly has over here.

One of my favorite accent stories concerns a young man from Boston stationed in NE Georgia, attempting to place a long distance call from Georgia to Massachusetts. As luck would have it, he initially talked with an operator in nearby South Carolina, who sopke ever so slow and thickly, who then connected him with an operator with typical harsh and nasal Boston accent. This so stunned the southern operator that she asked muy friend, "Honey chile, can you hear what she's saying? I can't make out a word she's saying." He wound up translating between the two.

A few years later my family moved to Suffolk and spent almost a year there, during which time my then eighteen month old child played with a boy doen the street. When we moved up to Thetford, about 35 - 40 miles away in Norfolk, our new neighbor asked us in all seriousness if we were really American because our son spoke with a Suffolk accent.

Dave