I Can't Say...

It's quite common, is that.

I have lived all my life on the English South coast but my parents were from the Midlands, so our family had an almost congenital touch of Midland in our voice. (Particularly in pronouncing the hard 'a': we say "castle" and "bath", not the Southern long-a in "carstle" and "barth"). Very hard to imitate accents in a text message!

The effect is that from visiting friends in Northern England I've picked up an odd hybrid accent plus accidental dialect constructions - like the stress phrase ending my opening sentence. I'll also find myself saying things like "I were stopping in..." ("I was staying in...)" and occasionally, "Aye" - "Yes", probably from Germano-Scandic "Ja" - Norse is very well represented in Yorkshire thanks to the Viking settlers.

To my Northern friends of course, my accent is clearly Southern - after all the average distance between us is over 300 miles, but English accents can change noticeably across only 30 miles.

me too! i have family in Georgia and after 4 days i get that dirty south drawl i love it but when i come up north i sound crazy to my friends lol full immersion is kinda cool

I have that problem too! I subconciously pick up the accent - it can really be annoying to the group I'm picking it up from....

I love Accents too! The Doctor I used to work for was from South Africa and he spoke with a Brittish sounding accent! I loved to hear him speak it was awesome!