The rumor the OP mentions that often gets dismissed as bullshit, might be the one that “in a valley in West Virginia/on an island off the Eastern seaboard, peop

The rumor the OP mentions that often gets dismissed as bullshit, might be the one that “in a valley in West Virginia/on an island off the Eastern seaboard, people still speak Elizabethan English!”. And that irks people who are knowledgeable because, as you state, American English is a mix of some archaisms along with boatloads of innovations of its own.