What's your local dialect?

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

General American with twinges of Northern Cities (Chicago-Detroit) and North-Central (U.P.-Wisconsin-Minnesota-North Dakota).

My parents both grew up in the military, living on bases for most of their childhood.  My dad was born in Austria, then moved to the UK, France, Italy, and Germany until finally moving to the D.C. suburbs when he was 16.  My mom lived in Connecticut and Pennslyvania before moving to the D.C. suburbs at age 17.

My parents met at the University of Maryland, and I was raised in the D.C. suburbs, exposed to accents of people from around the country, until we moved to Wisconsin when I was nearly 13.

As a result I have an "everywhere" accent, and I tend to assimilate the accents of whomever I'm speaking to.  I can put on a convincing southern American, Canadian, Californian, Yooper, and Scouse (but then only because I've seen every episode of Red Dwarf).

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

The Pacific Northwest probably has the least significant dialect of any region.  It is, along with parts of Ohio, I believe, considered the most typical American accent.

My accent is probably very close to that, but I still make the old cot/caught distinction, and most folks in the northwest do not.

I could go into broadcasting and probably not have to modify my pronunciations at all.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

I'm still confused that there are places were cot and caught have the same vowel sound

All of New England and Canada.

A narrow band starting central Penn. and gradually widening as it goes west into Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa.

Basically everything west of the Great Plains.

The bastions of ah/aw preservation are the Mid Atlantic (where I'm from), the northern Midwest (where I'm also from), and the South (where I'm sort of from).

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Hmm, I don't quite pronounce caught as 'cawt', it's between 'caht' and 'cawt'.  That's what I got for my parents being from Detroit, me being from Fort Wayne (NE Indiana), and being since age 4 in Minnesota.

In Detroit they pronounce "cot" almost like "cat," and "caught" as "cot."

Go across the bridge to Windsor, ON, and they pronounce "stack" the way Detroit people say "stock."