Everyone has an accent.
Actually, it is entirely possible to be devoid of an accent. It comes from speaking each word as it is intended to be pronounced vice with the slurs and alterations that are more pronounced in certain regions.
I guess it comes from being in a military area in the mid-atlantic region. We're neither northern nor southern.
accent is perspective....
to the brits... we all have accents.....
to sotherners.... yankees have accents....
to us northerners it's you hill billys that have the accent.....
as far as "speaking each word as it is intended to be pronounced"....
if that were the case we'd all still be speaking the proper "Queens English" ----->
http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/QueensEnglish.htmlbut even in England they have many different dialects (accents)
so back to my original statement....
accent is perspective....
"Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye." - Samuel Johnson
"It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves." - Carl Jung
"Perception is a mirror not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward." - A Course In Miracles
"However, no two people see the external world in exactly the same way. To every separate person a thing is what he thinks it is --in other words, not a thing, but a think." - Penelope Fitzgerald