When you’re dating, is height a dealbreaker? Certain hobbies give you the ick? For many, the way people talk is key – with many of us even finding certain regional variations of English more attractive than others. So it’s no wonder YouGov caused a stir when it republished these survey results on the UK’s hottest accents earlier this week.
In the poll, respondents were asked, in two separate questions, whether they considered the 12 ‘main UK accents’ attractive or unnattractive. The percentages for the two questions were then averaged and points were assigned to each.
So, want to know which region came top? It was the ‘Welsh accent’, whatever that is, with 20 points. This was closely followed by the Yorkshire accent, with a total of 15. The top five was rounded out by the West Country (13), Newcastle (10) and Northern Ireland (five).
At the other end of the list, the Glaswegian accent scored a miserable minus 29 points. Cockney did even worse, at minus 30. Mancunian and Scouse accents got minus 31 and minus 33 respectively, and bringing up the rear is the Brummie accent with minus 53. Apologies to people from Birmingham: you’ve officially got the least attractive voices in the country.
Of course, a list like this isn’t dropped without controversy. At the top of the list (which surveyed the British Isles as a whole) was ‘Southern Irish’, which commenters have noted is not an accent, and quite a weird way to describe it, too. Received Pronunciation – the Queen’s English – also scored well, but that’s not exactly an accent, either.
Broadcaster Huw Edwards even weighed in with his thoughts, not content with having the hottest accent in the country. He tweeted: ‘Well I hate to do this... but there is no Welsh accent. There are many. I vote for the Llangennech accent. Blaengarw second. Aberarth third. Sketty and Holyhead banned, sorry. It’s a tough call.’
We reckon this is going to rumble on for a while.