On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 01:17:12 GMT, Jaques d'Alltrades
wrote:

Unforgets me of the summer of 1963 when i was a barman in a Perthshire
hotel. We had this USian guest who was, er, rather expert at sinking the
spiritual stuff.

snip the story

We're not *all* hopeless, you know. Nor are all of you. :-) When I
was in London (glorious!) some people sought to 'compliment' me by
remarking "you don't *sound* American." I had no clue what they meant.
That I didn't sound Texan or Georgian or Bostonian or as if I were
from da Bronx? How can people from a an area half the size of
California with more regional accents than France has cheeses believe
there's such a thing as an 'American' mode of speech?