Sorry, we Brits really so polite at all!

BRITONS may be known for their manners – but we’re not as polite as we think. Only 38 of the 16,000 words spoken by the average person every day are pleasantries, says a new report.

The East Midlands is the most courteous region, the North West the least, and while ‘quite’ tops the list of polite words – used 12 times a day – the study shows we only say ‘please’ four times a day on average.

The analysis by Privilege Insurance and linguistics expert Professor Jonathan Culpeper, of Lancaster University, also reveals ‘sorry’ is said 6.7 times a day, and ‘thank you’ 5.1 times.

Other pleasantries include regional phrases such as ‘sup’, ‘my bad’, ‘bae’, ‘muv’ and ‘duck’.