Tracking Hillary Clinton’s Use of Every American Accent East of the Mississippi

During her tenure in politics, Hillary Clinton has shifted between several distinct versions of American English. This is not terribly unusual. President Barack Obama has been known to change his pronunciation according to region and audience. But the thing about Clinton is that she’s been in the game for so long, and has had so many different jobs and lived in so many different places, that her various accents wind up mapping her career.

Interest in Clinton's accent was renewed Wednesday, when she seemed to slip back into a drawl. Speaking at the South Carolina Democratic Women’s Council, Clinton replaced a lot of "I" sounds with "ah" sounds, a habit she's picked up sporadically over the years.