I have 3 stories about the U.S. Southern Accent - all told to me by my sister, who moved to North Carolina as an adult.
1 - The fumigator told her there were "spotters" in the barn. She asked if "spotters" were a type of snake. (The fumigator was saying 'spiders'.)
2 - Her kids came home from Sunday School and told her they had learned about Jacob and his whale. She told them it was Jonah and the whale. They insisted it was Jacob. Turns out they had learned the story of Jacob's well.
3 - Shortly after their family moved to North Carolina my nephew had his first spelling test. He spent all night practicing "sat", "mat", "bat", etc. He came home with an F on the test, and told his mom, "They didn't say any of the words I practiced!" His mom asked what words they gave on the test, and he said he'd never heard those words before, but he spelled them the best he could. His mom looked at the test and saw the words "seat", "meat", "beat". My sister had to go to the school and explain to the teacher that her son's first language was Spanish. He had spelled the words he heard phonetically - according to Spanish spelling, where "se" is pronounced like "say" (that is, Spanish "e" is pronounced like the long English "a"). The words my nephew heard sounded to him like "say-at", "may-at", "bay-at".
