The great scone dilemma democratically solved

The Great British Bake Off may have slunk off to Channel 4 but in its wake comes a fresh baking battleground with the lowly scone centre stage.
Scone. How do you say yours?Scone. How do you say yours?
Scone. How do you say yours?

For years the debate has dominated the afternoon tea table; what is the correct pronunciation of scone? Now new research claims to have produced a definitive answer.

Debate rages at tea tables across Britain A YouGov poll found 51 per cent of Brits overall pronounced scone to rhyme with “gone” while only 42 per cent would say it to rhyme with “bone”.

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And the key ingredients to this solve the baking dilemma were an equal mix of regional accent and social class. Scotland and the North of England were overwhelmingly in favour of the “gone” version of scone while London and the Midlands preferred to rhyme it with “bone”.

Among the working class, the “gone” version had only a one per cent lead over “bone” while middle class pollsters were much more likely to go for the “gone”.

Not only did the research provide a definitive guide to pronunciation, it also attempted to tackle the question on everyone’s lips; jam or cream first? The answer unequivocally was jam then cream, with 61 per cent of people adopting the “Cornish” method compared to just 21 per cent who dolloped cream before jam known as the “Devon”method. A sigh of relief can be heard in tea rooms across Britain.