We asked people why the Scots are so sexy

That accent though


This week, YouGov research found that the Scottish accent is officially the sexiest. 20 per cent of respondents found it the sexiest accent in the UK.

Presumably, all these people have some filthy stories about Scottish lovers won and lost. And so we asked people to tell us why they fancy the Scots so much.

Bobby

The beauty of the Scottish accent is that it sounds exactly like the motherland looks: the sometimes-gently sometimes-harshly rolling Rs like the sometimes-smooth sometimes-jagged hills of the Highlands, or the icy flatness of the vowels like the pallid waters of Loch Ness. It’s an accent of dichotomies: comforting yet affronting, passive yet aggressive, soothing like Merida’s mum in Brave yet at the same time tingling with the psychopathy of Robert Carlisle’s Begbie. Scottish girls sound like they’d stroke your hair one minute and tear it from your head the next – and that’s why I love them.

Craig

“Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great Chieftain o’ the Puddin-race! Aboon them a’ ye tak your place, painch, tripe, or thairm: weel are ye wordy of a grace as lang ‘s my arm.”

Now I’ve got no fucking clue what any of that means, but isn’t it beautiful? Compare that to any of the accents you normally hear, on the bus, at work or on television (disclaimer: this only works if you don’t live/work in Scotland or watch a lot of Taggart re-runs). Those soggy, whiny voices of people down south, with their clipped consonants and airbrushed vowels are as empty and soulless as everything else within the M25. If you want to hear a real person speak real words in a real dialect that will make you really swoon, head to Scotland.

Picture: Bamboo, Glasgow

 

Grace

Every word a Scotsman says is sharp, often sprayed, guttural, and unapologetic. No one ever ripped a boy from Surrey’s clothes off for his gently murmured “please” and “thank yous”. The Scots are real men – their accents match their big chests, manly breath and back hair. And when he says let’s get “mad wi it” you know you’re in for a rough ride.

Tom

There’s something about the gruff, permanently-sore-throated accent of a Scot that makes my knees go weak – and not with fear. One minute a Scot is the kindest, sweetest happiest person to be around. They’ll offer you shortbread, take you for a walk up cobbled streets, hike up a hill next to a loch and treat to a smoked salmon breakfast. The next, it’s tinnies in the streets, Hive till five, singing in the rain and kicking the fuck out of anyone who messes with them. And just as their personality changes with the wind, so does their voice. It’s sweet and cuddly and then they’ve got you by the balls and they’re shouting “INDEPENDENCE” in your face. And I like being kept on my toes.

Jack

Scottish girls sound edgy even when they’re just asking for directions. There’s just something about that slightly sharp, Buckfast-soaked drawl. It can be soft and considered or harsh and loud, making them more mysterious than the mist at Loch Lomond. There’s almost something otherworldly about people from a place with oatcakes, Nessie and something called Camera Obscura.

Picture: Kokomodo, Glasgow

Daisy

The Scottish accent manages to be husky and manly yet soothing and heartwarming, all at once. There’s something sexy about the roughness of it that makes you think they’re going to throw you over their shoulders, but then there’s a sweetness that conjures up images of them reciting poetry to you by the loch. Or maybe it’s just the way their words just roll off their tongue. Like, you can literally see their tongue.

Will

OK, look, I am a straight man, like a good 90 per cent straight – but have you seen Gerard Butler? The funny thing about Gerard Butler is that women don’t find Gerard Butler attractive. Only men find Gerard Butler attractive, only straight men. There are plenty of reasons for this. Gerard Butler looks good in a suit, he looks good holding a gun, he looks good wearing a leather thong, a helmet and a red cape. These are things straight men look for in other straight men. But the main reason, the simple reason, the reason it’s all so hard to explain – it’s because Gerard Butler is Scottish.

Picture: Kokomodo, Glasgow

Phoebe

Scottish men are just different. The word “spirited” was coined for Scottish men: they are fast and furious and antic and frantic. Similarly, they are often loaded on spirits.

Which is all part of the appeal – they get drunk, get mad wae it and then grab your hand and suddenly you’re on a night out with them. They’ll dance – they love dancing – they’ll always want another drink, and they’ll never once leave you on your own. They’re gentlemen. They have those deep, gruff accents that sometimes border on the unintelligible – and I grew up in Scotland – and that’s incredibly, effortlessly seductive. What was that? Did he just ask me for a light, or for a fight?

But he definitely asked you something – because Scottish men aren’t too “cool” to talk to you. God, that attitude – typical of London and the southeast – gets so boring after a while. They’re excited by life. They don’t think it’s “embarrassing” to care about things: have you seen the Scottish weep after a football defeat? Have you heard them chant “here we, here we, here we fucking go” as their team steps out and they hope – they dare to hope – that this will be their year? It never is and they never give up. That’s real loyalty.

Also – they’re so funny. Type “Scottish Twitter” into Google. Go to T in the Park. Listen to their comedians. Scots have a natural, bathetic patter and anecdotes delivered in those blunt, gravelly vowels are really side-splitting.

Take me back to Scotland.

By Phoebe Luckhurst, Bobby Palmer, Craig O’Callahan, Will Lloyd, Grace Vielma, Tom Jenkin, Jack Cummings, Daisy Bernard and Phoebe Luckhurst.