Did you see that YouGov dug up its old poll on the best and worst accents in the British Isles and it sparked quite the row online this week?
Well, in case you missed it, the market research and data analytics firm took to Twitter to respond to a tweet that intended to “start a civil war” by asking people for their takes on what the “worst accent” in the UK was, and so decided to shared the results from its controversial 2014 poll – which rated accents based on how attractive or unattractive they are.
The ‘Southern Irish’ accent was found to be the most appealing, according to those who voted, claiming a net attractiveness score of +42.
Other accents deemed attractive and placing highly include received pronunciation (RP) – or ‘BBC English’ – Welsh, Yorkshire, West Country, and Geordie, while the Scouse, Cockney, Glaswegian, and unfortunately for us, Mancunian, accents ranked low on the list.
The Birmingham, or ‘Brummie’ accent, was voted to be the most unattractive in the poll.
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Brummie is the worst accent in the UK, according to a 2014 YouGov study
At the time the poll was conducted, YouGov said thee were some “vast differences” in perceived attractiveness of accents.
And if the recent rowing on Twitter is anything to go by, that’s definitely the case.
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YouGov said that the West Country accent is considered the most attractive to over-60s, with 63% of the oldest generation seeing it as attractive, compared to only 22% of 18-24 year-olds. The opposite perception had developed for Northern Irish too, with most 18-24 year-olds (54%) seeing it as attractive, compared to only 37% of over-60s, and then the Geordie accent also had a greater appeal to older British people too.
Here’s the list in full:
The Most Attractive Accents in the British Isles
Southern Irish
Received Pronunciation
Welsh
Yorkshire
West Country
Geordie
Northern Irish
Glaswegian
Cockney
Mancunian
Scouse
Brummie
YouGov’s controversial 2014 poll rated British accents based on how attractive or unattractive they are / Credit: Unsplash (Amy Humphries)
The results from the poll, unsurprisingly, sparked criticism and got a lot of people talking.
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But rather than people just being outraged that their accents were deemed to be unattractive and making claims that it isn’t the case, criticism largely came from the structure and wording of the survey instead.
Plenty of people called out the term ‘Southern Irish’ and objected to Ireland falling under the umbrella of ‘the British Isles’ while the explaining that the country of Ireland has countless different accent and dialect variations.
Similar criticisms were also levelled at the use of ‘Welsh’ and ‘Northern Irish’, while many couldn’t wrap their heads around why ‘Glaswegian’ appeared to be the only Scottish accent on the list.
The most common critique from people responding on social media was that the UK is filled with accents that change ever-so-slightly, or in some cases quite drastically, from one town or city to the next – for which the region of Greater Manchester is a great example of – and so it doesn’t really make sense to generalise and say that one place has one specific and distinctive accent.
Do you agree? Fancy having a read through some of the responses and critiques by people? Keen to give your thoughts on the debate?
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You can get stuck in over on YouGov’s Twitter here.
Musical comedian Morgan Jay is coming to Manchester on his biggest ever UK tour
Danny Jones
Viral music-driven comedian Morgan Jay is returning to Manchester and the UK for his biggest ever transatlantic tour.
The crowd work specialist and social media star is coming back to our fair city once again early next year, having not long ago performed for a maiden Manc crowd.
That’s right: the bloke best known for performing silly improv songs on a ukulele for the majority of the set, not to mention being a little bit cheeky with his audience throughout, is coming to the AO Arena.
Entitled La Dolce Vita, this new tour – set to be the follow-up to his ongoing ‘Goofy Guy’ show – will be just his second performance here in 0161.
Have already got his current tour underway across North America, with more gigs coming up across Asia and Oceania later this year.
As for his next European leg, it kicks off early next year, and do you want to guess where he’s coming first? Yep, straight to us.
We’re almost certain he’ll be bringing that tiny little guitar and a healthy dose of autotune along with him, but you never quite know what you’re going to get…
Can you believe he grabbed her neck like that in public? not going to lie I kind of liked it. The Nashville show went crazy people were horny and having a good time. Tour dates below. 6/5 – Atlanta, GA 6/6 – Hollywood, FL 6/12 – Milwaukee, WI 6/14 – Prior Lake, MN 6/19 – Cherokee, NC 6/20 – Charleston, SC 7/2 – Ledyard, CT 9/12 – Los Angeles 9/17 – Los Angeles 9/25 – Maui 9/26 – Oahu October 3 – Tokyo October 5 – Taipei October 8 – Hong Kong October 11 – Abu Dhabi October 14 – Manila, PH October 17 – Sydney October 21- Auckland, NZ October 25 – Melbourne, AU October 29 – Brisbane, AU November 1- Adelaide, AU November 6 – Perth, AU November 11 – Jakarta, ID November 13 – Singapore, SG November 18 – Kuala Lumpur, MY November 21- Bangkok, TH November 27 – Mumbai, IN November 29 – Bengaluru, IN
You can see his full list of upcoming dates over here down below.
Morgan Jay UK tour dates – 2027
Thu 25 Feb – Manchester, AO Arena Sat 27 Feb – London, OVO Arena Wembley Sat 27 Mar – Glasgow, SEC Armadillo Thu 1 Apr – Birmingham, Utilita Arena Birmingham Sat 3 Apr – Cardiff, Utilita Arena Cardiff
As you can see, there’s only a handful of dates across Great Britain and Ireland, so we’ll consider it an honour not only to be on the schedule but to be first on the call sheet.
Tickets will be available for pre-sale starting on Wednesday, 27 May at 10am; meanwhile, general admission goes live this coming Friday, 29 May, also at 10am BST. You can get ready to grab yours HERE.
If you’ve not come across him before and you’re wondering whether his stuff is your cup of tea, you can watch his special shot in LA, among others, for free on YouTube.
Featured Images — Press shots (supplied via Live Nation)
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Bernardo Silva shares hilarious X-rated clash with John Stones before they were teammates
Danny Jones
This long weekend not only saw Man City manager and sporting legend Pep Guardiola bid goodbye to the club after a decade, but so did John Stones and Bernardo Silva, and the latter shared a hilarious story about an encounter before their bromance in blue.
Can’t lie, this one nearly made us spit out our tea when we first watched it…
Following the trio’s respective final games, this late May bank holiday Monday saw yet another City parade pass through Manchester, and as the party continued over at the Etihad Campus and Co-op Live for the afterparty, the boys got up on stage to say some parting words.
In Silva’s case, he chose to share, rather fittingly, some very choice words indeed, as he talked about his time playing against Stones when he was still in France.
From ‘little soft c**t’ to brothers lifting trebles together… football heritage.
Safe to say no one was expecting that particular expletive to come out of his mouth – we reckon not even most of the squad themselves.
During the Yorkshireman‘s first season at Manchester City, he came up against the creative midfielder in the Champions League when he was still playing at Ligue 1 side AS Monaco.
As you can see in the clip above, while it wasn’t the friendliest of exchanges back then, they soon buried the hatchet and chalked it off as nothing more than football.
Both fierce competitors in their own right, they look to be plenty soft with each other off the pitch ever since they became teammates.
So much so, in fact, that the duo ended up being the face of a pop-up Man City pub earlier this month, recreating the famous photo of the Gallagher brothers wearing the 1993/94 kits.
Credit: Manchester City FC (publicity pictures)
It’s plain to see in the clip how much love there is between the two, all these years later, and the story itself got a rapturous reaction from their peers and the crowd alike.
Silva has plenty of fans across Europe, both as a player and purely as a character; you only have to look at how Jack Grealish often reiterates his love for the Portuguese playmaker as a person and Premier League character, or even how pundits aligned with rival clubs like Gary Neville waxes lyrical about him.
And then we come to Pep himself.
Guardiola was rightfully given a fantastic guard of honour at the stadium itself on Sunday, with his speech making for an emotional moment for all those in the stands and watching at home, and City supporters at the parade made sure to give him a proper send-off.
Emily Sergeant -
7th January 2022 
