Survey shows 80 per cent of Britons 'lie to appear smarter'

DON’T be fooled by that superior sounding BBC accent and the witty banter, the British are not half as smart as they want you to think they are.

Majority of Britons 'lie to appear smarter'

DONÂ’T be fooled by that superior sounding BBC accent and the witty banter, the British are not half as smart as they want you to think they are.

At least according to a survey that shows that 80 per cent of Brits admit to lying about themselves in order to appear cleverer than they are.

The study reports that two-thirds of people pretend to have read books considered classics, such as War and Peace and 1984, according to Metro UK.

Over half those surveyed also admitted to changing their appearance to look smarter, putting on glasses they don’t need in order to amp up their geek profile.

Other tactics include pretending to speak foreign languages, exaggerating knowledge of wine and trashing films they secretly enjoyed because they were considered too popular.

Being square has never had more cache thanks to the rise of the geek look in fashion and the success of nerdy entrepreneurs like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

The study was commissioned to celebrate the DVD release of season six of The Big Bang Theory, the paper reported.