Your comments

Jen from Carrickfergus N.I
I love the scouse accent, it has to be the best by far!

Sean from Basildon
I never cease to be amazed by the incredible variety of the regional accents of our Island. Being an Essex lad I would have to agree with what most people have said here that our accent is probably the worst.Infact what bugs me the most about where I live is just how American everyone sounds now. Listening to the syntax and words used here now makes me feel like i'm stuck in an episode of friends aarrrggghhh -is this the same elsewhere? Personally as a bloke I would love to have an Edinburgh accent - it sounds too smooth. On girls I find the sexiest accent without any doubt has to be the plummy accent...ooooeerr.

louise bristol
im a proper bristolian and i ate it listeing back to myself i sound like a farmer anyway who cares what you sound like i dont if i like you i like you if i dont i dont voice tone pitch dialect and accent doesnt come into the equasion as long as i can understand you its all good

Bill Chess from iow
The iow accent, if you find someone who still uses it, is utterly unique and i would like to see some clips on this website to represent us Vectensians.

james bell from newcastle(toon)
wiy haway man ya shad all be proud of ya accsent like but i think geordie is the best in the world, if ya ask any one round the toon they will tak aboot how proud they are for being a good all geordie

Jorge Vicente from Spain Zamora
Depite being a Spaniard, I am a passionate for English accents. I feel really amazed that there is such a variety of accents in the British Isles. Spain is larger than the B.Isles, but I think the average of different accents is bigger in the B.Isles. I have been or visited several places in the UK and in Ireland(Dublin, Liverpool, Manchester, North Wales, London and Inverness, now I'm spending a year in Middlesbrough)and distinct features are remarkable. Finally, what I would like to point out is that that fact is great and fruitful. The most important thing is being respectful towards other speakers and trying to be as communicative as possible.

Kat from Keighley
An accent is a variety of pronunciation - nothing more, nothing less. A dialect is a variety of a language which is distinguished by differences of grammar or vocabulary. I often wish I could speak the Yorkshire Dialect, sadly I just speak Standard English (a dialect of English) with a Yorkshire Accent.

Anthony Mugube, Lagos, Nigeria
I was shocked whilst touring the UK, by the unparalled diversity of regional accents; some where fairly easy to understand like the homogenous southern, middle class accent yet on hearing the Glaswegian and Liverpudlian dialects I really could have done with subtitles or at least have a translator on hand.

lucy from staffs
my favourite accent is the stoke accent. its so friendly and i wish i had it! when i am in stoke i cannot hear that i have an accent at all, but when i am elsewhere in the county people tell me i have a slight accent especially when i'm in the south, and talking to my family in bristol.

Damian Guildford Surrey
A fascinating subject. Coming from the more "well spoken" part of surrey and indeed attending schools that had more middle than working class kids, my accent developed a surrey (not posh) but fairly well spoken untill the age of secondary school.A senior school attended a more by working class breed,and in an area filled by london over spill after the war. The result is a london/surrey/hants hybrid,sometimes using london phrases but still being able to turn on the "posh" when needed and without even noticing it. Quite a skill.I even start unconciously modify my accent when im with say frieds from Dublin/Bristol/Manchester for a few days.I wonder if thats due to the variation over my life?

Ros, Hertfordshire
I really love regional accents. I'm originally from East London but have lived in the Isle of Man, Bristol and Southampton and have been to Public School. The result is an accent that is such a mixture that people always ask where I come from. My favourite accent has to be the Manx accent (my Mum is from the Isle of Man).

Christine, Hull
I think people should be proud of their dialects. What really let's people down is the way they speak, not the dialect itself. Take Hull for instance, Hullites will consistantly refer to Hull as 'ull, this will alway's let them down when trying to apply for a job. My mother always told us to speak properly and clearly, and whoa betide us if we didn't.

Steve from Cardiff (hometown Toronto)
As I don't have an accent from the UK, I find people are more interested in it than in me, which I find a bit rude. Does it really matter where I'm from? I do enjoy the various regional accents I've encountered, finding they get more pleasant the further you go from London!

Wee Johnny fae Dundee
Everyone who speaks with a local dialect/accent should be proud of their voice. Yes, everyone has preferences as to the accents they prefer, but to slag off the ones you don't like is a bit off. I have a slight Dundonian accent but due to the parentals being from Manchester there can be a bit of the odd northern English pronunciation in there! However being married to a bloke from the 'Hulltoon' (an area of Dundee) I can quite easily slip into a right 'oarie' Dundonian accent!

Patsy Riggs - Kesgrave
Why do people so frequently confuse accent with speaking properly. Replacing 'g' with 'k' or 'h' with 'haitch' or 'th' with 'f' is not accent - its incorrect speech. Accents sound lovely and are fascinating. I was not taught to speak properly at home and found English lessons to be so difficult it ws like a foreign language.

Ben Jefferies from Dushanbe, Tajikistan
You think you've got dialect and accent issues in UK!

D Mitchell from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire
I was born and brought up 20 miles from here in Hemel Hempstead, Herts and I have a North London (London overspill) accent. When I first came to Aylesbury 15 years ago I noticed that most of the older generation had a very rural/country accent but now the overspill accent seems to have spread and the old Aylesbury accent has all but disappeared. But if you go 9 miles away to Thame, Oxfordshire the rural/country accent is still as strong as ever - I wonder if it will just be a matter of time until this dies out as well.

Houdinia from Milton Keynes
I was always encouraged by my parents to speak properly and can still put on a posh accent when the occasion calls for it but it gets harder to disguise my real accent as the years go by. I've picked up the London estuary accent but I still think it's important to speak clearly.

john,london
i find the middlesbrough accent amazing as its a miz beetween scouse and geordie so its sound fab!! if you havent visted boro,its defo a must do!

Tom Clements, Epping, Essex
I suppose being from Epping , I naturally have procured the fallacious Eppingite dialect- to me this is non-existent, the stereotypical Essex accent is pervasively homogenous throughout SE England- romantic dialects no longer exist as increasing hoardes of consumer zombies gravitate to Thurrock for a bit of 'Lakesiding' and thus acquire and reinforce the obligatory stigma of Essex folk.

Mickey, Essex
DJ TJ? East London? why hasn't anyone noticed how stupid that is? a cockney using flowery diction, seemingly uncolloquial and pompous- the complete opposite of the vernacular talk perculiar to the region!!

G from Manchester
I hate Nick Hancocks voice- especially how ends each statement and sentence he makes with that awful semi- bored intonation he has adopted! I'm not sure I like my own accent either- its a weird mixture of Mancunian and general northerness and maked me sound a bit well lacklustre and personality-free!

DJ TJ from Hackney, East London
I utterly deteste most regional UK accents and dialects, for it is a sign of someone quite uneducated. A supercilious veneer is fundamental to the debonair and bourgeoise- we should therefore maintain Britain's heritage and thus seperate ourselves (i.e. the educated)from 'them'and repudiate any slight tinge of a possible accent or dialect in their speech.

Nigel, Milton Keynes
I hate my accent, it's just too run of the mill and has no sense of identity (not that one is really entitled to any coming from Milton Keynes- oh how I envy the brute, assertive tone of a Scotsman and the harmonious song of a Welshman.....

Ricardo from Lisbon/ Stoke
Since working in England, I have becom very exited about Stoke accent! It is total unique! a exiting mixtur of Birmingham (Brumy???) and Manchester and with very interesting proverbs and local phrases. eg. 'can ye kick a bow gainst a woe head it bach n bost it' ultra strange!!

Honroy Anchovy, Ipswich
People say that there is a distinct Ipswich accent yet I fail to hear it myself, to me it's just the same as London/Estuary mockney cockney.

Michael Crowley from Epping, Essex
I and a number of fellow 'Eppingites' as we are known are reputed to have a Germanic sounding lilt to our accents according to villagers living in close proximity to the town, whether or not this is fact or fallacy, remains to be seen and would be an interesting case-study for anyone who loves being analytical about regional accents.

Tom from Bedford
I've just realised how fascinating accents are- living in Bedford, one can simply drift a few miles north-west to Northampton and people seem to have a slight east-anglian and northern lilt.

M Carmichael, Leeds
As an English teacher I spend a lot of time trying to get my classes to understand the difference between accent and dialect, and that Standard English is a dialect, NOT an accent. The accent associated with Standard English dialect is Recieved Pronunciation or RP, (often known as a "BBC" accent) and the Queen's accent is "marked RP".

Hayley Sheffield
I absoluty hate my voice and would d anything to change it!

Debbie Smith Bristol
I love the N Ireland accent it has a wonderful lilt about it. I never notice my accent untill someone points it out and the way we shorten words and the rs we sound here in Bristol.

S.Murphy from Birmingham
I don't really like the Birmingham accent that much (even though I've got one) but I do like the Black Country Accent (Wolverhampton, West Brom. etc). It sounds singy and old-fashioned. Also like Newcastle & Northern Irish.

robert,middlesbrough
I love liverpool accent its amazing!

Brian in Cumbria
It matters not one tittle or jot. If everyone spoke S.R.P. (Does "Standard Received Pronunciation" still exist?)it would make for a very boring life. Provided one squeaks with an inteligible accent and strings one words together understandably why should an accent brand you? Having got that off me chest, some of the accents turned loose on our ears by "Aunty Beeb" are little short of hellish.

Emma Stone from Deal
When i hear someone talk posh i immedietly think snob even though i know they cant help it and they properly arnt but i might say this because i'm quite common

Dave from Leicester
Although it's pleasent to hear regional accents in context with the apprpriate region, (ie Liverpudlian, Geordie etc.) some of them do not travel well to other regions. This seems to me, especially true when getting one of these 'thick' regional accents when answered by a call centre. I find that when one is frustrated anyway by having to speak to some call centre, a thick regioanl accent can sometimes be the last straw. And as a final note in regards your poll, Janet Street-Porter and Cilla Black should be banned from TV. I mean, are those accents contrived or what.

Lydia, York
Where are Alan Rickman and Richard E Grant in all of this?

Lesley, London
The American / Australian inflection at the end of a sentence is one change to language that annoys me for lots of reasons. Mainly because it is an unassertive way of speaking. Instead of simply making a statement, it sounds like a question, as if the person does not have the courage to say what they want to say without asking if the person listening approves or undertands. The point somebody made about no London accents on the news is not quite right. It is that there are no working class accents on the news, presumably they are not considered intelligent-sounding! I think we should have them on. My favourite accent is a good thick working class Glaswegian one!

Robert Gore, currently Lincolnshire.
At school, south london, but public school so many boarders from all over the world, spectacles were commonly called gig lamps or gigs, but no one since, that I have used it to, has ever heard of it. Seems rather a nice image, big glowing convex chunks of glass sticking out sideways. On another tack it seems to me that there is a relation between complexity of expression and the musical wave that carries through the sentence, the more musical and varied the more educated and intelligent the speech. Conversely stupid short comments, riddled with f words seem to lack this variety, and are likely to be more montone and jerky. Such speakers get bored with long sentences and loose the drift. Its interesting that speakers of equivalent complexity, that is long sentences with lots of sub-clauses, who come from the States seem to have a different carrier which makes them harder to comprehend. There are wonderful examples of clarity and complexity selected sometimes from the Lords and MPs as comments in 'Yesterday In Parliament'. Works or art sometimes. I would like to hear some discussion of this music that underlies speech, the technical name for which I do not have a clue. My contention is that a person born into a family whose communication is jerky and unmusical will experience problems with developing intelligence and coping with liguistic complexity, throughout life unless a new style is adopted at school. Tone often indicates whether a comment is designed to be funny or insulting and I have observed that some people routinely make wrong judgements, because it appears that their brains pay more attention to the literal meaning and not to the sound. male female argumenst often arise this way, for example.

Richard Lloyd from Fife
I'm fascinated by accents - I really enjoy the way accents grafually change across and up and down UK. No accent is unpleasant - just different - and interesting!

red badger from 'ull
Yorksher accent and more specifically 'ull accent rules! i hate the new cockney accent E>G eastenders but every other acent is good bu not as great as Yorksher!!!

Jay from London, living in York
Coming from North London, I can only describe my accent as disappointingly non-descript and southern. Wherever I go in the country, my accent is oppressive and annoyingly mainstream. I wish i could have an accent to be proud of, which represents my region, something to root for when I hear it spoken on rare occasions on tv. America is probably the only place in the world where my accent isn't boring.

smh london
i do not dislike any particular accent- however what i do find irritating in the london accent is an inflexion at the end of each sentence which has developed in recent years -sounds very american and almost sounds patronising eg it' s half past two?

Ken from London
Why do we have every regional accent under the sun reading the news but not London (cockney)? Is this just a sop to the regions?

Helen Clough, Newcastle upon Tyne
I'm VERY proud of my Geordie accent. My family are also proud of their Geordie accents. If people don't like it, that's their individual choice!

Maria from Hampshire
I have a Brummie accent and feel it knocks 50% off my IQ as soon as I open my mouth.Can't stand 'f' being a subtitute for 'th', that fing, arfought 'bout i' and amblance (ambulance) drives me insane, so does boccle (bottle), hospicle (hospital) ARRRGGHHH!!!!! and people that say tiss-sue and marg-oreen (as in Margo from The Good Life). I'd just like a non-specific English accent, so no on knows where I originate from. At 41 I'd love Alex (Afro-American from the film The Field and narrators to the series Roots, can never remember his surname) to read me a bedtime story!!! His voice is like chocolate wrapped in velvet. As for UK accents, no one can top Richard Burton, I'd listen to him reading the back of a cereal packet.

Susan Bolton from Bagshot, Surrey
I lived on Teesside until I was 14 and for the past 30 years have lived in various places in the South. My accent is therefore heavily modified, although I have not consciously made an effort to either change or retain it. I'm a teacher and am slightly ashamed to admit that when there's trouble in the classroom, I deliberately flatten my vowels. It's surprisingly effective, as the pupils seem to assume I'm a good deal tougher than I really am!

mave from saltash/cornwall
my favorite accent is geordie they come across as being honest,friendly approachable,least favorite Welsh they can be condesending and arrogant.Me, I'm a Devonshire dumpling oooh arrhh!

Kezia, from Bedford
There are hundreds of lovely accents - no one can tell yo who to like and who not to. Personally I find that accents such as Paul O'Grady's and Peter Kay's are just as acceptable as Hugh Grant's gorgeous tones!!

Kathryn M from South Wales
It's complete and utter rubbish! I've already sent a message but i just had to send another because i am furious! The Welsh language is AWESOME and what you've done by voting is RACIST! I have nothing against the English language or any other so why on EARTH do you have a problem with us? After all, it's only how we speak! I say voting for something like that should be ILLEGAL! otherwise, it's going to start chaos! Because i know i will!

Dio from Cymru
We should all be proud of our accents. I enjoy Eastenders as much as anyone else in the UK, even if keeping up with the subtitles can be difficult at times.

Jan from Huddersfield
I love my Yorkshire accent, and I think everyone should be proud of their accent, it's part of them. I'd never change my accent for anyone, not even if I met the Queen, if people don't like how I talk then that's their problem.

Beth from Ireland
Hannah Gordon's is one of the nicest voices I have ever heard. She speaks so clearly with just a faint hint of her native Edinburgh.

Sandra Richardson Manchester
I love a Geordie or Scottish accent. I loath Estuary and London accents they are real turn offs or oafs depending on your accent.

robert vine liverpool
i dont know who was asked their opinions during the poll but to call the liverpool accent unpleasent is wrong, when speaking to people outside liverpool on the phone or in person, i am always told by the person i am speaking to that they love my accent, and at times have even been told that my accent is very sexy. furthermore my fiance is from blackburn and her and all her friends said they found my accent sexy..or maybe its just MY voice they found sexy

Anne, Hertfordshire
I love regional accents - living where I live, we all have that wishy washy southern accent, but absolutely love all the various accents from all over the country, I really wish I had an interesting one. I particularly love all Scottish accents (mother was a scot), most southern Irish accents, and the Liverpool accent. If I had to choose one at all that I disliked, other than my own, I'd probably say West Country.

Maggie Brunger from Seattle (home town, Swindon)
While I was growing up in Swindon in the '50s and 60's there was a very (ugly) strong, slow accent which my mother (who grew up in Swindon, Westbury and South Wales) has always claimed developed from the "melting pot" of the Great Western Railway Works. The 'Works' imported men and families from all over the country throughout the late 19th C and early 20th Century, and it seems that the accent which developed from the Works was an amalgum of West Country, Welsh, and more northerly English - Birmingham, Geordie etc. With the huge London "Overspill" population influx throughout the 50s coupled with the demise of the GWR Works in the 60's thanks to Dr. Beeching, the local accent has changed considerably in my lifetime. It is now much more bland and "London" influenced, presumably reflecting the advantageous proximity to the fastpaced Capital rather than the slower West Country.

Matthew Coombs- Swindon
As a Londoner living in in the west- I love the local Wiltshire/Gloucester burr. However I think that the people who speak with a rural accent are stigmatised with being "rustic" and somehow simple. Also I think "Urban" accents are seen as less desirable - I don't think it is an accident that Cockney, Scouse, Brum, Geordie and Manc accents are seen as unattractive. Why? surely this must be linked to class by the English in a way that the Celtic accents are not.

P.Mac, Cambridge
I like most of the well defined British accents including Welsh, Brummie, etc. However, the only accent that I utterly loathe is the Estuary/mockney English spoken by people from Essex, Kent, London,etc. I sounds dreadful and yet seems to be adopted by everyone from the home counties that move to London.

Alistair, Glasgow
The Glaswegian accent is the best in the world! It's the sarf London accent which sucks.

Don Hayman from Oxford
The most pleasent voice on Radio is DJ Bob Harris, strong accents from N Ireland, Scotland and Wales are big turn-offs.

Jacobine Scott-Koekendorp from Amsterdam/Edinburgh
Too many lovely voices to choose from: Johnnie Walker/Sally Boosman/Hugh Grant/Pierce Brosnan/Billy Connolly