The Boston Accent Is America’s Most Annoying, Says Annoying Survey

LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS — Episode 316 — Pictured: Seth Meyers during the ‘Boston Accent’ movie sketch on January 21, 2016 — (Photo by: Lloyd Bishop/NBC)

Marty Walsh: Annoying.

Boston families with burger franchises and strong forearms: Annoying.

The nice lady taking your order at Sail Loft: Annoying.

Your dad: Annoying.

Such is the inescapable truth, according to science. Boston’s accent is the most annoying in the U.S., say researchers at Preply, which is a company, and which surveyed 1,755 people about their thoughts on all manner of accents hailing from all over the world.

Respondents said talking like you’re a co-star in a Smaht Pahk commercial is the most irritating of all American dialects, just a smidge ahead of the southern accent, which ranked second, and the New York accent, which ranked third. I’m talkin’ here!

You come to expect these things after a while. After all, people love to hate, love, or otherwise obsess about in one way or another the various things, people, places, and crimes that occur in Boston. (It would be funny, wouldn’t it, if the survey revealed that people across the continent were really annoyed by, of all things, the Hawaiian accent, which ranked ninth-most-annoying?). Respondents’ favorite accent in the U.S., it seems, is the southern accent, y’all.

Complicating matters, Boston’s accent was simultaneously found to be both the sixth most popular and sixth sexiest—a result that jibes with the findings from a few years back that our non-rhotic residents had the second sexiest accents in America. The survey found the Boston accent registers as fourth smartest-sounding—which is something, considering the New York accent allegedly sounds smartest.

Moving beyond the U.S. to a more worldly take on people’s manner of speaking, the results show that respondents’ favorite accents were British, Australian, and French, in that order. The Brits really ran away with it, leading the pack as the top choice accent-wise with an approval rating of 52 percent. Men and women agreed on this, although next up on the list for women were the Italian and Irish accents, while for men their fourth and fifth favorites were the Canadian and German accents. Go figure.

Ahem… go figyah.