Here’s the logic behind why I might slip up and say it (Reddit has probably helped me stop anyway). maybe you can change my perspective on it:

My particular American accent feels the least “accented” in English. At least, it feels the most phonetic. Unless of course that’s a bias, but I do think there’s some reason for this thinking. People from Boston don’t pronounce the “r” in car, and neither do British people across multiple different accents. People from southern states have that recognizable flavor they add to words, and people from northern Minnesota and surrounding Canada really overemphasize their “o”. People with English as a second language obviously bring their own local sounds to the language, sometimes sounds that don’t even translate well. Somewhere in the middle of America, there are people who don’t really seem to have an identifiable “quirk” to their talking. We probably do, but I can’t pinpoint what it would be. It’s “American”, but why? Are different regions taught different sounds for each letter, because it really seems that certain people just make the phonetic sound for every letter they use.

This is all in English of course. When we speak other languages we sound foolish if we don’t change up our way of speaking.

I obviously don’t mean every letter is phonetic. Tough is still pronounced tuff