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Poll says Pittsburgh accent is 'America's ugliest'

Gawker.com

Poll says Pittsburgh accent is 'America's ugliest'

It's official: Pittsburgh has America's ugliest accent.

So said a slight majority of voters in the final round of a tongues-in-cheek online tournament by Gawker.com that pitted Pittsburgh vs. 15 other cities.

In last week’s final round of the bracketed competition, it got down to us vs. Scranton, but Pittsburgh finished with 10,404 votes to Scranton’s 8,748 to win by a margin of just more than 54 percent.

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No. 4-seeded Pittsburgh bested — or more accurately, worsted — No. 13 seed Atlanta, No. 5 Philadelphia and No. 1 Boston to make it into the finals of the online “America’s Ugliest Accent” poll, which was mostly Internet silliness.

However, as the Post-Gazette reported earlier this month, some linguists took exception to Gawker’s tone in disparaging the various regional accents.

But many Pittsburghers were “prahd” to top — or is it bottom? — this latest list. As the news spread on social media — exactly what Gawker wanted — after the Post-Gazette broke it Sunday afternoon, the ranking was getting some boos but mostly cheers.

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One observer had it both ways, tweeting, “I love this city, but I am glad I’m not a native. The accent is ... not very charming.”

Bob Batz Jr.: bbatz@post-gazette.com and 412-263-1930 and on Twitter @bobbatzjr.

First Published: October 20, 2014, 11:33 a.m.

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