By 1889, the accents would generally have been pretty different, but without recording devices, how would the average American know what an English accent sounded like?

Good point.

This author certainly makes a big deal out of Western accents, while never (as far as I can recall) even mentioning Northern and Southern. They're somewhere out in the territories now, and encountered a bunch of people who talk like Yosemite Sam. (I remember reading that the switching of "er" and "ar" -- like "varmint" for "vermin" -- is actually a remnant of a much older English pronunciation.)

Anybody know of any good books about the development of American English usage and accents? I've read Bill Bryson's, but kind of want to know more now.

Yeah, me too. This is fascinating stuff.

Sometimes I forget I'm in California and ask for pop instead of soda. People look at me funny.

Accents and dialects are awesome things. As an English teacher (and having taught a lot about language variation), I really should know of books about American dialects, but most of the books I've read have been UK-centric. If I come across any, I'll let you know.

A really good book on UK dialects is this one. Very readable.

The Dictionary of American Regional English is supposed to be pretty good, Hil:

[link]

DARE is a wonderful piece of work, and they're editing the last volume now, but, like the full OED, not really something the average person can own. (DARE article) I got interested in this stuff years ago when I worked at Emory and took some graduate classes there. Lee Pederson was some years into the 20+ years it took to do the Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States.

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I'm sad I've lost my native accent, but apparently when I'm tired or in a particularly good mood I revert. It certainly came back fast when I went back to Pennsylvania last June.

Isolated is a very good term for Greene County, PA. I was in a restaurant with my family, and something odd had caught my eye. Then I realized that the folks sweeping up and cleaning the tables weren't Hispanic. After a bit of Anglo discomfort, I said, "It's weird seeing people cleaning up who . . ." and I couldn't think of a way to say it, until my oldest sister, who lives in California, said, "whose birth language is English?" "Yeah!" Our middle sister, who has lived in our home town all her life, looked mildy baffled, but Sharon and I shared a Western-US-resident nod of recognition.

The homogeneity of Greene County--one of the reasons I left.

Accents and dialects are awesome things. As an English teacher (and having taught a lot about language variation), I really should know of books about American dialects, but most of the books I've read have been UK-centric. If I come across any, I'll let you know.

When I first visited England I spent a lovely evening at the Bridge Inn (near Exeter) trading accents with British students.

"So what's a London accent?"
"You know, like Michael Caine."
"Huh."

A mailing list I'm on says Tom Deitz died this morning. Talented people who are about my age or younger: please stop dying. Thank you.

Oh, I got a message about him at work - apparently he used to work at the UGA library. I can fish it out and email you if you'd like to see it.

Sometimes, I are dum. Kipling's "Just So Stories" /= Aesop's Fables.