Stephen Lewis goes in search of Yorkshire's favourite word.

FORGET the fuel crisis, the Dome and the awfulness that is Matthew Kelly. There must be something seriously wrong with a nation that chooses serendipity as its favourite word.

I mean, it's not even a proper word. It was coined on the hoof (now there is a nice word) by the 18th century writer Horace Walpole to express "the faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident".

That's a lovely concept, don't get me wrong. I wish I could make a few such discoveries myself. The word even has a certain ring to it, rolling off the tongue in an agreeable sort of way providing you have the time to pronounce it properly.

Unfortunately, all it says about us as a nation is that we're a bunch of poseurs. How many people who voted for it, I wonder, really knew what it meant?

Second in a poll (opinion poll, that is, not bald human head) to find the nation's best-loved word came quidditch, which is scarcely better. As if we're not obsessed enough with Harry Potter already, do we really have to claim the word for a game played by him and his pals is one of our favourites?

Between them, Walpole and JK Rowling managed to push love into third place, with peace and why? (now that's more like it: lovely word) tied for fourth.

Further down came hope and faith. Charity, appropriately enough in this day and age, came nowhere.

I blame the triumph of serendipity on the kind of smug southern pseudo-sophistication that gave us the Dome and Cool Britannia. Up here in Yorkshire we're different, of course.

A quick trawl of opinions among shoppers in Borders bookshop, York, revealed a wonderfully quirky sense of the pleasure of words.

For Mike Shaw it was wittering. "I enjoy wittering myself," he said. "It's a nice word and it's got a nice double consonant in the middle." Double consonants in the middle are, naturally, one of the prime requirements for any decent, self-respecting word.

Caroline Granger, 35, favoured buffoon. "It sounds like what it is meant to mean," she said. "And it's quite nice and gentle. Not too nasty."

From nice, gentle terms of affectionate reproach to... woodlouse. Not, stressed 30-year-old Peter Cooper, that he particularly had a thing about woodlice. "I think they are horrible little creatures. But it is a fine word, and it makes me laugh every time I hear it."

Brenda Thompson had to think for a moment before deciding on the word she liked above all others. When it came, though, it was one that was appropriately worthy of Yorkshire.

"Landscape," said the 62-year-old from Helperby. "It's what it stands for, really. The area where we live, the serenity - that's a nice word, nicer than serendipity - the peace and the quiet."

If you want to find the best Yorkshire words, of course, who better to consult than an expert in Yorkshire dialect. Passing over such arcane (adj: understood by few) remnants such as doy (a term of endearment for a young child) Yorkshire historian Arnold Kellett admitted he had a fondness for two mainstream English words with their own special Yorkshire meaning - grand and champion.

In standard English, Mr Kellett said, grand might mean simply splendid, magnificent, even a touch overblown. In Yorkshire, it had an altogether warmer feel.

"There's a special feel about the way we use grand," he said. "In Yorkshire it's a complement. The same goes with champion."

Another champion word, according to Evening Press letter writer Pamela Egan, is snickleways. "I think it was invented in York," she said. "And it just evokes how the tiny streets are. That's just how they are."

The words we hate tell us just as much about ourselves as those we love, of course.

Minster FM breakfast DJ James Watt admits that his least favourite words include office, work and alarm (as in alarm clock). "From my point of view, that's horrible, because I have to get up at 4am!" he said.

Top of Arnold Kellett's hate list is initially. "It's horrible," he grumbled. "What's happened to good old Anglo-Saxon first, or at first. Everybody says initially now."

Celebs have their favourite words, of course. Barbara Windsor, star of the Carry On's and the Queen Vic in East- Enders favours: "Daarlin'," meaning "I can't for the life of me remember your name."

Initially, I wasn't going to let you into the secret of my favourite word. But I suppose I ought to. For a journalist, there should really only be one choice: clich. What else do we have to fill the column inches with, after all? I find myself irresistibly (nice word) drawn in another direction. There's a word which combines many of my favourite things. Warmth, comfort and security. Idleness. Lazy mornings. Even a hint of sin. It's a simple, unfussy word, with just one syllable and it is... "bed."