I have a good friend, here in TX,  who decided to become an actress, so after college, she left  to try her luck in New York City.   After being turned down several times from some small acting parts,  she finally asked her agent what the problem could be & the agent mentioned not being as "marketable" because of her Southern accent.   Friend enrolled in speech class to try to rid herself of the regional sound in her speech pattern.   The instructor told her that one can never completely lose a Southern accent & that it was brought about originally by the warmer climate making folks less energetic & causing them to adopt a slower pace.  This translated into a habit of speaking more slowly & "chewing" on their words.  That, along with the added habit of also chewing tobacco brought about the "drawl" & the  different "slower" speech patterns of today's Southern folks.  

Since there are some famous newscasters from TX, such as Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather & Bob Schieffer to name a few, it apparently isn't completely impossible to lose the accent but then maybe they do still have traces of it & I just don't notice it as readily as someone from other areas of the country might do.    Recently I heard someone on the news pronouncing the word "out" as "oot" & I immediately thought, "They must be from Virginia."   Turns out, they were from Canada.  

Diane in TX

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