While everyone has an accent, I'm curious to know what aspect of a person's accent/dialect they tend to be teased about.
So my questions - you can answer whatever you wish, depending on your life circumstances. It's not limited to English, btw.
1. If you live in area that you're not really native to, what about your accent or dialect do the locals find funny about your accent?
2. Turning the tables around, what do you find funny about theirs?
3. Whether or not you're a native or lifelong resident, what do you find peculiar about the native accent(s) of other people who are not from the area you live in? Where are they from?
Answers to my own questions
1. I live in Washington (previouisly from New Jersey) and people perceive my accent to be "normal" enough, I suppose. There are some people who are staunchly, yet playfully, "anti-soda / pro-pop" such as my former High School art teacher - he'd tease a classmate (also from NJ) and me about using the word "soda." And also I recall some debate about the "proper" pronunciation of the first "o" in the word "coffee."
Also, I guess people in general tend to poke fun at the "Philippinisms" that tend to creep up in my English; like I say "aircon" which is a Philippine English word for "air conditioning" - or the fact that I, for some reason, blurt out "close the light" instead of "turn off the light" once in a blue moon.
ETA: Washingtonians have made fun of the way I pronounce "apricots." For them it's "aypricots." For me, it's [æ]pricots.
2. Here in Washington, there are a number of people that tend to pronounce words like "bag" and "flag" as "beyg" and "fleyg" respectively. My coworkers do it a lot, and it sticks out like a sore thumb.
3. Hands down, for me, is the accent of an ex-coworker of mine who is a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She has the whole northern cities vowel shift thing going on - in particular, she pronounces words like "stop" and "pop" as "stap" and "pap." I teased her so much that she became self-conscious and has been trying to sound more, uh, non-NCVS (which she shouldn't, because it's so fun to hear). She once asked me why I don't tease my Kansan coworker who sounds kinda southern, and I told her that I think it's because I'm so used to hearing southern accents.
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