Englishmen have been known to migrate to Los Angeles and return home a scant few months later with a Californian twang stretched across their vowels. American girls will come to work in London and then jet back across the Atlantic sporting shiny new Kensington-influenced accents. However, the chances are that if you dropped a Scotsman into the middle of the Amazonian jungle, where he had to live with the forest people for 20 years, and have no contact with any other Scots, he would still speak like a Scot. In fact it's very likely that the jungle people themselves would all be talking in thick Glaswegian accents. Why? Because, according to an increasingly persuasive amount of research, everyone wants to sound Scottish nowadays.

In a recent survey commissioned by the communications group The Aziz Corporation, 55 per cent of business executives said they believed that a Scots accent was desirable in business because it conveyed 'above average honesty in the personality of its owner'. Compare this with the survey scores of our United Kingdom counterparts, with some English regional accents scoring as little as 22 per cent and you begin to get an idea of why the Scots accent is so highly prized in the worlds of advertising and telemarketing. The same survey threw up some other interesting statistics: 63 per cent of people believed that if they meet someone with a Scottish accent in a business capacity, they would generally believe that the person was successful. The Aziz Corporation's chairman, Khalid Aziz said, 'If you want to get ahead in business it is better to sound as if you are from Scotland than from any English region.' Or, as one female advertising executive, puts it – the Scottish accent sells.

But perhaps this isn't so surprising when we consider the effects the Scots have wrought in the world of cinema. Are there many women over 40 who don't go weak at the knees at the sound of Sir Sean Connery's silky purr? Or many women under 40 who don't have the same reaction when they hear Ewan McGregor's honey-dipped tones?

And it's not just native Scots who can spin our accent into box office gold. Mike Myers – star of the Wayne's World and the Austin Powers movies – has a long-standing affection for the Scottish accent that dates back to the time he spent in Edinburgh in the mid 1980s, when he was an up-and-coming comic working the Festival circuit. 'I just love the Scots accent,' Myers has said, 'because it can go from very soft to really angry so quickly.'

Myers first used his Scottish accent to hilarious effect in his early 90s comedy So I Married An Axe Murderer, where he played his character's own father – a man fond of the Bay City Rollers, conspiracy theories, McEwan's lager, and berating his sons for the size of their craniums ('My God! Will ye look at the size o' that boy's heed! It's like Sputnik! Spherical but quite pointy in parts') Sadly, Axe Murderer, was a box office flop when it was released, but for those interested in hearing one of the funniest – and best – Scottish accents ever committed to celluloid by a non-Scot, it's well worth picking up on DVD.

Undeterred, Myers returned to the Scottish accent again a few years later, this time with much greater commercial success, in the smash hit Shrek, creating one of the best-loved animated characters in movie history in the process. But it nearly wasn't so: Myers originally voiced the luminous green ogre using his native Canadian accent. He thought it could be funnier, and convinced the producers to let him re-record his entire part in a new Scottish accent. The re-dubbing allegedly cost a fortune, but Myers's instinct, and his feel for a Scots brogue, were proved right when Shrek became one of the biggest hits of the year. (Of course, not all of Myers's creations have been quite so flattering to the Scottish people – who could forget the horrendous Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers series? Thirty stone of sweating, foul-mouthed Glaswegian!)

If Myers in Axe Murderer and Shrek are examples of a non-Scot getting our accent right most Scots would probably agree that, at the other end of the scale, the actor getting it most wrong was Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Gibson's mangled blend of Highlands, Lowlands and anything in between left many people at a loss as to which particular part of Scotland, if any, this William Wallace came from. However, Gibson's accent couldn't have been that off-putting as Braveheart picked up a raft of Oscar nominations and went on to become one of the most successful films of all time at the Scottish box office, introducing a whole new generation of Scots to a forgotten chapter of their past to boot (albeit with a few historical liberties).

Other much-loved Scottish accents in the worlds of film and TV have included Scotty in Star Trek (of whom Eddie Murphy does a flawless impression: 'The engines cannae take it Captain! They're gauin tae blow!'). Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid in the Harry Potter films, Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland and Robin Williams's cross-dressing turn as Mrs Doubtfire.

Interestingly Williams based his Mrs Doubtfire accent on that of Scottish director Bill Forsyth, whom Williams had worked with on the 1993 film Being Human. Forsyth had, of course, already made a considerable contribution towards publicising his native tongue when he directed the worldwide hits Gregory's Girl and Local Hero back in the early 1980s.

But pride of place here must surely go to the character with arguably the best-loved Scottish accent in TV history – The Simpson's school janitor and flame-haired Scotsman, Groundskeeper Willie, voiced by Dan Castellaneta (who is also responsible for Homer Simpson’s dulcet tones). Who can forget the wit and wisdom of Willie, who once wanted to marry his tractor? The world without our well-greased, bucket-carrying hero would surely have been an incomparably poorer place.

And finally there is even the argument that the Scottish accent is so fondly regarded throughout the world that it allows the user to get away with language that very few other accents do. Paying our tongue a high (though possibly dubious!) accolade the comedian Eddie Izzard said, 'If you look at Billy Connolly, he can use really rough language swears like a trooper sometimes - but little old ladies love him and go and see his shows. He gets away with it because of that adorable Scottish accent. If I used language like that in front of pensioners I'd be tarred and feathered!'

For further information on the Scottish accent, there are a plethora of information and clips online.The CD accompanying Dominic Watt, Arthur Hughes and Peter Trudgill's book on accents and dialects has recordings of speakers from Edinburgh (two), Glasgow, and Aberdeen. The CD that comes with Foulkes and Docherty's Urban Voices has quite a few Scottish speakers on it too.