So, I'm from Seattle, basically, and for the longest time I thought no, I do not have an accent.

Then I learned that the reason I thought that was because well, the accent I have is basically the least distinct from the 'General American English' or 'Region Indistinct American' accent, out of all other regional accents....

With that 'General American' accent being what nationwide newscasters, voice actors and movie stars either developed on their own, or were trained into, for being easily intelligible to any other American accent/dialect speaker, or as just sort of a rounded approximation of 'American', with no specified regionality to the character.

Thats not to say the PNW or Cali or just general US West accents are all exactly the same as 'General American'... they are not... its just that they are the least difficult to understand from a general audience perspective out of other regional US accents/dialects... or at least that is the explanation I've heard.

As I am aware, the main difference between PNW/Cali English and other US regions is that we have completed the cot-caught merger. Absolutely no difference in pronunciation, the verb sounds are the same... whereas in much of the rest of the US, these are different, distinct vowel sounds. We just use the 'cot' pronounciation for both.

Bot cot thot slot thought caught fraught not spot dot.

All the same. No rolling or bending of the first vowel into the u to make a more complex vowel sound, all just 'bot' or 'dot'.

That and pop vs soda vs coke.

For whatever reason, I usually say soda, but that did make me an oddball of most people around me near Seattle saying 'pop'... but a lot of other places in the US use soda, but also a lot of other places use 'coke' to refer to any ... soft drink... which confuses and aggrevates my Autistic brain lol.

...

There are a few things that I remember being distinct to Californian accents/dialects as compared to Seattle:

One is the rising tone at the end of the sentence... thing.

I always called this a valley girl accent, and this is because no one I knew as a kid spoke that way... unless their family had recently moved north, from Cali.

Now though, it is more common generally in the PNW, at least in my own experience.... but also that could literally be because a lot of Californians have migrated north.

Another silly, but super easy tell someone isn't from Seattle: Their accent may be essentially indistinguishable from a PNW accent... but they always, always refer to I-5, as 'the 5'... instead of 'eye-five'.

No one born and raised near Seattle does this.

I-5 is the main highway that goes all the way down from Vancouver BC, through Seattle, Portland, San Fran, LA, and runs through all of those cities, so its a major reference point of conversation in all those places.

And yeah, the regional vocab difference for how people refer to it is an example of a difference.

Midwesterners are the only people I've ever met who don't think they have an accent. And I'm like "you have a midwest accent." They're stunned because to them it's just a "normal" accent, and they know it must be so because it's what the TV man talks like. Obviously I know midwesterners who know they have an accent and the TV man is trained to speak that way. But everyone else I meet and know knows their own accent and can recognize variations of it. They're not so conscious of how they make their accent happen, obviously, since it is their own. But they know they sound different from other people

Why can't people just be normal. I am being my normal self, but other people seem different. Bastard freaks.

No it doesn't

A few years ago there was the possibility of me moving to the US from Germany and if I would have bought a house there, I would probably have installed additional Schuko-outlets all over the place.

Yes and in Europe houses generally have 400V too but not at ordinary wall outlets

There's a technology connections video on it if you're interested in the specifics

Exactly :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMmUoZh3Hq4

When I was 17 my father brought back a stereo from Japan. I was too eager to use it and plugged that directly to 220. It worked for a glorious 2 minutes. We got it working again after we replaced the transformer. Still have it and it still works fine to this day. Learned a lesson too!

Damn Poe’s Law

I think the Swiss have the best Europlug-based system. Their three-conductor plugs have the same footprint as basic Europlugs, which makes for very dense plug arrangements. Unlike e.g. the German Schuko plug they only fit in one orientation so you get no polarity issues.

It's pretty neat.

Lol, no.

It's a right of passage for a kid to learn what a 120 volt shock feels like if they're careless in unplugging something. One pin is just an unforgettable sensation, while both will knock you down. The real mystery is why code requires the outlets installed upside down. Technology Connections did at least one video on the differences of outlets in the world, and his point was that if the ground pin was above the other two, something falling on a partially exposed plug would rest on the harmless ground and not what it can do, short out the two live pins. But then we wouldn't get the cute faces, so...

that's cute. nah tho. the pins are just… out there. ready to kill you