IT is regarded by many as an uncompromising accent guaranteed to wipe the smile from your face. Now it's official.

Despite the best efforts of Stanley Baxter's Parliamo Glasgow, the accent has been deemed one of the least comical throughout Britain.

Research from Aberdeen University has ranked Glaswegian the third least amusing accent, putting it ahead of only the Mancunian burr and "received pronunciation".

A team of experts spent two months studying how regional accents influence how funny a person appears. The Brummie accent, closely associated with comedians Frank Skinner, Jasper Carrott and Lenny Henry, came top.

Second was the Liverpudlian Scouse twang, as used by Paul O'Grady, with the Newcastle Geordie accent, synonymous with television presenters Ant and Dec, taking third place.

They were followed by the Welsh, Yorkshire, Cockney, Belfast, and south-west England accents.

Researchers asked 4000 people to listen to the same joke in 11 UK regional accents to discover which they found most amusing. Glasgow polled just 3.4per cent.

The test joke, chosen to reflect traditional British standup comedy, demanded no notion of cleverness on the part of the teller; instead, the listener's concentration was focused on the lilt of the words themselves.

Glasgow however, takes the last laugh. The research found that the funniest accents were also deemed the least intelligent.