Is the Yorkshire accent Englands smartest?
“Of course it is,” says Fran Byrne from Leeds, a store buyer who’s been extremely smart herself in getting a £27 return ticket to London for the weekend. She’s in a tearing hurry to get to platform six, but has time to reel off a list of clever Yorkies whose voices are everywhere these days. “Barrie Rutter doing Shakespeare, Tony Harrison doing the Greeks, Ian McMillan and Simon Armitage doing poetry, Alan Bennett doing everything.” Then she’s gone, but the point’s there. Tykes said nowt traditionally except about themselves or their county; now the world’s their oyster and they seldom stop. It’s the most plausible reason for findings presented to this week’s British Psychological Society annual meeting in Dublin, which matched a range of English accents with perceptions of intelligence. Hecky thump if Yorkshire didn’t clobber them all, with received pronunciation (poshers) in second place and poor old Brummie bottom. “There’s been a tipping point, a sea change, an isogloss,” says McMi
