Winehouse by name, 'Whine-mouth’ by nature? A new report examining the nation’s best-loved and most-hated regional twangs reveals the notorious crooner’s cockney accent to be the most despised drawl in Britain.
Meanwhile, the Geordie accent was voted top of the regional twangs, with Cheryl Tweedy’s Geordie lilt selected as Brits’ favourite celebrity accent, closely followed by fellow Geordies Ant and Dec. Cat Deeley’s Brummie brogue and Peter Kay’s Lancastrian lilt followed in the league of most-loved celebrity accents.
Joining Winehouse at the bottom of the lingo league was fellow East Londoner, David Beckham. Prime Minister Gordon Brown was voted in third place, followed by Scouser Colleen Rooney in the poll of 3,000 Britons by national budget hotel chain Travelodge as part of its campaign to find out Britons knowledge of their own regional phrases and dialects.
Brits were asked to complete a 'Mother Tongue Test’ to reveal just how well they could identify and understand their own language, with shocking results revealing that over half of Brits couldn’t decipher local terms from the Scouse term 'scran’ for food to Cornish 'oggies’ – pies. However, 85% could understand foreign phrases such as the German word for sausage - 'wiener’ - and Spanish 'piazza’, meaning a town square.
Campaigning to keep local lingo alive, national hotel chain Travelodge is aiming to make life easier for the growing number of Britons exploring the UK during the credit crunch by providing Lingo Busting Guides on its website for people to download before they check in.