me_irl

There's a different accent every 50 or so miles.

Along with a new word for bread roll.
- And a new cake, pudding, pie or cheese named after the nearest town
Pfft, 50 miles? I can tell which town most of the people in my area are from by their accent.
More like every 5 miles
When I grew up near a town of 6000 people in northern Ireland in the 70's there were four distinct accents. Partly because there were two different recent growth phases to the town that brought in new people (from other parts of northern Ireland). And also because TV + education caused a generational change too for the locals. The much older inhabitants had a more Elizabethan grammer and a mix of Irish/Scots Gaelic + old English nautical vocabulary.

It's not an accent. We're the only people in the world without an accent. In fact, I'm the only person in the world without an accent.

Americans are the ones without accents.
- If you didn't almost certainly have a gun on you right now, you'd be in for it mister.
- Depends on your definition of "accent" (yes, really). Is an accent a deviation from standard/dictionary, or is standard/dictionary also an accent?
  
  Assuming standard isn't accent, depends on the zone/individual. We all know about Brooklyn and Southern drawl and Minnesotan, etc.
  
  Assuming standard isn't accent, Americans have less accent than other English-speakers, but more accent than you'd think. For example, Americans say "budder" instead of "butter".
- I think the closest widely spoken accent to what was spoken in England a few hundred years ago is southern American IIRC. I think there's actually an island in Virginia that is almost totally isolated, and they have what we suspect is the closest.
  
  It's still all accents obviously, but if you mean the least changed from what it used to be at one point (which is different than what it was at a different point), you are mostly correct. Obviously there are still a million variations of American accents, and even a lot of variations of the southern American accent.

Akchually, the United Kingdom has a wide variety of accents and no single "British accent" exists.

So far, what I've learned from this thread is that they all have accents and none of them does.

I'm an American who spent a lot of time in the north of England. If anything it gets even worse.

Nah, the moment they don't think anyone's listening, they all sound identical to John Wayne. Yes, the women and children too. Especially the children.