Sir Sean Connery`s voice voted most pleasant in Britian

Scottish James Bond actor Sir Sean Connery has the "most pleasant" speaking voice, according to a new poll which also rates the broadcasters Trevor McDonald and Terry Wogan as appealing to the nation’s ear - reports The Scotsman.

But while we swoon for the lilt of Connery, it seems we can’t bear to listen to Tony Blair or David Beckham and would least like to talk like a Brummie.

Among other well-known figures with distinctive accents and speech, Cilla Black and Janet Street-Porter were also likely to have people reaching for the "off" switch.

The BBC-commissioned online poll sampled 5,000 people on their attitude to accents and dialects and how we speak and are spoken to.

Dr Clive Upton, a linguistics expert at Leeds University, said: "Scratch the surface and language can create huge debate. We are passionate about it, because it’s about who we are and where we are from."

Three-quarters of people who answered the poll said they thought they had a reasonably strong accent, with those from Northern Ireland and Scotland being most proud of their lilt.

More than 60 per cent of people think British English is becoming more Americanised, and 59 per cent wished they could change their accent - mostly to Standard English.

One respondent said: "My accent makes me sound thick and gives the impression that I have straw coming out of my mouth." The most reviled accent is that of Birmingham - which came bottom of the tables for pleasantness, prestige and career progression - with those of Liverpool and Glasgow not far behind.

Standard English tops the chart, with Scotland next and Cornish coming in as eighth most desirable.

The poll was commissioned ahead of the BBC’s Voices project in which 1,000 interviewees are being recorded round the UK. The BBC material will be used to augment and update a survey of English dialects at Leeds University and provide an online interactive dialect map of the British Isles.

It is being launched in a Word for Word live special on BBC Radio 4 presented by Dermot Murnaghan on Wednesday at 9am.

Not only did Sir Sean’s Edinburgh burr top the UK-wide poll for having a pleasant voice, Scottish voters also made his their number-one voice.

Jane Stuart-Smith, an English lecturer at Glasgow University, said: "It’s interesting that Sean Connery topped both the Scottish and British surveys.

"His accent is so popular because people associate his voice with the stereotype of an attractive persona.

"When people voted for him, I wonder whether they were thinking about Sean Connery himself or James Bond, who is associated with a suave, elegant mysterious figure."

Ms Stuart-Smith added: "I don’t think it is surprising that Billy Connolly appeared in both lists.

"Billy Connolly’s Glaswegian accent is associated with harshness and toughness and this can provoke a range of responses, from positive to negative.

"Nor am I surprised that Scotland is the part of Britain where people are proudest of their accents, because many link accent with identity.

"When you consider Scotland’s relationship with the United Kingdom, most Scots tend to be particularly proud of their Scottishness rather than their Britishness, and it follows they would be proud of the accent that reveals them as Scots."

Ms Stuart-Smith was surprised that Glaswegian was poorly rated by respondents across the country, but she thought that this might change in the future. "I am surprised that this type of result for the Glasgow accent is still being found," she said. "It ties in with a whole set of prejudices about Glasgow.

"But Glasgow is now a stylish and fashionable city. Perhaps a younger set of respondents would associate Glasgow with stylishness and would have quite a different reaction to the Glasgow accent."

Thanks to `JP` for the alert.

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