Here in the US on St. Patrick’s Day one hears too many people trying to speak with what is commonly called an Irish lilt or accent. Do people in Ireland perceive we Yanks as speaking with an accent? The same question with a Scottish brogue.
We’ve all got accents - not only people from different countries, but also from different regions of a country. 
Google tells me the ´American Accent´ is called RHOTIC. This means Americans (´Murcans 
) pronounce the letter ´r´ every time it is in the spelling, and never when it is not. *
Anyone care for some ´Worcestershire Sauce´?
As a yout´ I participated in a summer grain harvest. There were very many Southern teenagers who came across the country to participate since there seemed little employment at home. I would amuse myself by trying to identify what States they were from by listening to their speech.
Bob
edit: *this is not entirely true as my Grandfather´s DownEast Maine accent would render ´thirty´ as something like ´thutty´.
Haven’t you ever heard some Americans pronounce “wash” as “worsh”? I think that’s regional, but I couldn’t say where - somewhere east of Wisconsin, I tend to assume.
Then there’s Archie Bunker’s famous pronunciation of “toilet” as “terlet”. Puts a whole new spin on the phrase, “the Queens English”.
“Wash-yer-sister sauce”.
Jeez, but that’s annoying as hell.
From what I understand, Right Pond actors are better at doing convincing Yank accents than it is the other way around. There seems to be something we get wrong every time, and it’s hard for us to tell. For example, sometimes I can tell an Australian accent from an English one, but not always, and don’t even ask me to tell an Aussie from a Kiwi. There are scores of English accents, and sometimes I can tell them apart, but often the differences are too subtle for my ear.
And it takes a sharp ear for a Northerner (American) to imitate a Southern accent, because there’s not just one. But I think Southern accents are simply just not easy to get right if you didn’t grow up there. I would have thought Kenneth Branagh did a good Southern accent in Wild Wild West, but apparently Southerners don’t think so. Shows what I know. Everybody says Hugh Laurie’s American accent is flawless, but not for me; if anything, I would have pegged him as Canadian, somehow. And it’s hard to put my finger on why. In the upcoming movie Mrs. America, Cate Blanchett seems to have a pretty good Yank accent. I don’t know how they do it.
I know a fellow from the Shetlands who can do a Midwest accent and speech patterns hilariously well. I couldn’t do his, though, without sounding faux-“Scottish”.
@Nano - Yes, it is beyond annoying but the perpetrator always thinks supremely humorous. And to actors, it seems odd to be to have an actor try to imitate this or that accent. Why not cast a native speaker?
Warsh is a Warshington, DC, and Maryland thing.
And a lot of Vermonters put an r at the end of the word idea, despite dropping most r’s.
PS I suspect that when a Northerner (US) is imitating a Southern accent, it is quite intentionally very exaggerated to indicate ridicule.
Oh, yes. I nearly fell over laughing once when a friend from England showed me his “American” accent. He sounded like someone trying to put on a cross between Southern and “cowboy,” badly.
“Terlet” for “toilet,” but then “New Joisey.” He swapped his "er"s and his "oi"s, lol.
I used to have fun listening to a couple of my bosses talk… one was very obviously from Noo Yawk; the other from Boston and I’d only pick it up in a few certain words. They had some great conversations, accent-wise:
“So he moved to Singapaw after his divawce.”
“Oh yeah? What did he do theah?”
I saw a movie once-- can’t remember what it was as I saw only a few minutes of it-- but it had this dialogue:
Character 1: “Where are you supposed to be from?”
Character 2: “Well, I’m from Scotland, obviously.”
Character 3-- who was actually from Scotland-- as an aside to someone else: “Not any part of Scotland I know.”
(Character 2 turned out to be an actor trying to pass as Scottish… can’t remember why.)
I honestly don’t identify with a “Midwest” accent. When people talk about it, I look at them quizzically because no one I know speaks that way-- the pronunciations, the slang, most of it is foreign to me. I’m not sure much of it applies to Michigan, except for the northern parts; more Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Although I had a friend years ago who was originally from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. When she got married, it was in her hometown. We showed up for the wedding and I couldn’t figure out why I’d never before noticed her strong northern accent. Then realized: it was because it had only come back while she was there; she didn’t have it living further south.
Not every time. Some Southern accents are very gracious and elegant-sounding, and I know some people who occasionally try to emulate such accents for that very effect.
While it’s true that in the past the general Northern perception of Southern accents tended to be one of lowbrow hillfolk, I believe that perception has been losing traction, and that is a good thing.
Star power.
That’s probably the stereotypically classic feature of the Queens accent (hence my little pun, above). I don’t know how common it still is, though.
Interestingly enough, you come across it in New Orleans, too.
Here’s a Scottish comedy sketch of Scots trying to navigate a voice-activated elevator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMS2VnDveP8
I know I cannot do a southern accent of any sort. But as an 18 yr old exposed to at least six distinct regional Southern accents, after about 3 mos I got fairly good at guessing where the speaker came from. This was in the early 60´s, and things may have homogenised somewhat lately. I do know the hardest ones for me to pick out were from the large metropolitan centers like Atlanta, Miami, and Dallas. . .although the Texans could give a tip-off with a different cadence. The more ´country´, the easier to distinguish. I was surprised to find the Northern Panhandle of Florida was quite distinct from just a few miles north across the border into Georgia. The Alabama natives, as well as the Floridians would be distinctly annoyed if you confused them.
A good friend related this story to me after she moved from Texas to the Winston-Salem area. She was drinking iced tea with one of her new neighbors, when she realised she no longer heard her young daughter´s voice, or any of the children´s voices for that matter. ¨Where can Mimi have gone off to?¨ ¨Oh, she´s down at the branch playing with the others.¨ delivered with a hard, long ´eye´substituted for the ´a´. ¨The what?¨. ¨The branch¨. Hannah understood her neighbor when she substituted ¨the Crick¨ for the ´branch´. ¨Creek¨ for us Northerns. . .
Bob
I saw a movie once-- can’t remember what it was as I saw only a few minutes of it-- but it had this dialogue:
Character 1: “Where are you supposed to be from?”
Character 2: “Well, I’m from Scotland, obviously.”
Character 3-- who was actually from Scotland-- as an aside to someone else: “Not any part of Scotland I know.”
(Character 2 turned out to be an actor trying to pass as Scottish… can’t remember why.)
Robert Altman’s Gosford Park
I can’t tell, but was that a serious suggestion for the pronunciation of “Worcestershire”? If so, it’s way off. The pronunciation is “Wuss-t’-sheer”, with the “u” to rhyme with the “oo” in “football”. I’ve never understood the problem about pronouncing “Worcestershire”, but then, I live very close to the county.
As to the OP, the American accent is very strong, wherever it comes from. On the whole, it seems very harsh to my ears, with most American accents grating quite badly. There are a few which are much nicer, seeming softer somehow, but I wouldn’t have a clue where they’re from. Nano’s isn’t too bad.
Mind you, we have our fair share of very harsh, grating accents here in the UK - certain Birmingham or Liverpool accents, for instance. Very strong Glasgow … [shudder]. Go just a bit further north from Glasgow, and suddenly everyone speaks with a beautiful, soft, musical, Highland accent.
Ben, I was told, but am not sure if this true, that the so-called ´Southern Drawl´ is derived from the southern part of England. I seem to remember Devon being pointed to as having a pronounced ´drawl´ in the time of George III, and this area contributed significant numbers of colonists. What say you?
I do know, that I have encountered some ´Glaswegian´ accents that were wholy unintelligible. 
Bob
I say I’m probably not enough of a linguist to be able to tell. However, from a purely lay point of view, I can’t see the connection. The Devon accent doesn’t strike me as being a ‘drawl’ in the same sense as the Southern drawl of the States. With the Devon accent, there is a strange sort of elongating of vowel sounds, often, and I suppose that’s why it’s described as a ‘drawl’, but, unlike in the Southern states of America, consonants are not only very distinctly pronounced, there are even additional consonants added!
I can manage them now, but it took decades before I was able to decipher much, if someone had a very strong Glaswegian accent.
´Course, there is, as has been pointed out to me. a very distinct difference between a ´Southern Drawl´ and a ´Southern Twang´. The story I told about my friend, Hannah, from Texas, near the Oklahoma Border being unable to decipher ´branch´ in Winston-Salem North Carolina, had to do with ´Twang´, as much as Vocabulary. Curiously one description of the ´Southern Drawl´ is quite like the words you use to describe the Devon Drawl, an elongation of vowels with elision of added vowel sounds. This leads to the cadence being perceived as slower. The cliché is ´southerners talk slow´. An acquaintance who moved from Florida to the Pacific
NW found himself talking faster and wisecracked that he had just gained ten points on the IQ scale.
Bob
I hope you don’t say ‘the Shetlands’ to your friend from Shetland! 
LOL, yes. I’ve seen that one. There’s also the woman trying to get Alexa to play the song she wants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYvFxs32zvQ
I think I’ve also heard people say “Wor-ch’-shir”…
But, in many places, if you’ve never heard it pronounced, you can only do the best you can by reading it (as happens with many words)-- hence, you’ll pronounce every syllable.
Not nearly as rhotic as Canadian. In Ontario, a 25-cent piece is likely to be a “kwordr”; across the border in New York, it’s more likely to be a “kwahdah”.
Which brings me to the subject of “clue” words …
Ask them to say “black”. If it comes out something like “blaack”, I’d guess Australian. If it’s more like “bleck”, almost certainly New Zealand.
There is (only) one that I can pick out. To my ear, the Mersyside pronunciation of “customer” is unmistakable. (Listen to Penny Lane again.)
I think it’s more than just the name on the marquee. Best Exotic Marigold Hotel wouldn’t have been the same without Dev Patel, or Big Fish without Ewan McGregor, to name a couple of examples.