accents

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It always amuses me how much the English language varies based on location. Those living in the UK speak very differently from those of us in the US and depending on where they're located in the UK it will vary too. Accents vary. Everyone often assumes everyone in the US has the same accent but we don't much like accents vary in just about every country. For instance, most of the midwest calls soft drinks pop while places like California calls it soda and places like Kentucky calls it all Coke which to me is insane because Coke is a brand, not the name of every soft drink out there it's a type of soft drink, not a soft drink itself. Where you live basically determines how you'll more than likely end up speaking although both of my parents say the word wash very different and I never picked up on the way either of them says it. My dad says warsh and my mom says woysh. I have always said wash. My mom calls bell peppers or sweet peppers mangos for some odd reason even though that's an entirely different food. I am one of the only ones out of my siblings that never picked up on that because I spent most of my childhood with my dad who called them bell peppers. I remember my mom asking me to get a mango and I went and got a bell pepper and she was very confused when I actually brought back a mango. My siblings were all laughing about how they found out a mango was an entirely different food and said she set them up for failure. I said pillow pellow for most of my childhood until someone pointed out that's not how you say it. I have a difficult time understanding thick accents whether it's southern or an accent of someone from a different country even ones that may be native English speakers. It has more to do with the way they say a word and not the word itself. Some accents seem clearer than others. It's interesting to listen to various accents. I often find out I've been mispronouncing things my entire life just because that's either how I heard it said my entire life or how I read something. A lot of the English language or at least the American English language is taken from other languages so some things are spelled completely differently than the way they sound. I may be a native English speaker but there are still so many words I don't know how to pronounce or spell. I remember the first time I went to Pittsburgh and heard some of them speak I could barely understand them and they're not far from the Ohio border but they speak so differently than we do. Accents have always fascinated me because they're all so different. I never assume that everyone from the same country has the same accent because most of the time they're going to vary and it's amazing how much they can vary even from city to city at times. Why do we sound so different and say things so differently despite being close to the same area? I don't get it but it's interesting.