These are the things Sheffield is best known for by rest of the world, including Sean Bean and The Full Monty

When Twitter user Lord Beestonia – aka Matt Turpin, communications manager at Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature – asked people who are not from Sheffield what, in three words or fewer, they think of when they think of Sheffield, he had no idea what he was starting.

Nearly 6,000 responses later, that simple question had revealed a huge amount about the things people who don’t live here love, and in some cases hate, about the city.

Many of the replies were unsurprising.

Steel, cutlery, snooker at the Crucible and The Full Monty all cropped up repeatedly, as did Game of Thrones star Sean Bean – who even ended up trending again on Twitter as a result of the tweet.

Depending on your age, The Human League, Pulp or Arctic Monkeys made the cut musically – with honourable mentions for Def Leppard, Heaven 17, Cabaret Voltaire and many more showing just how big a mark the city’s music scene has made on the world.

The tweet’s author revealed himself as a big fan of Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker, writing in response to a nomination for Britpop’s inimitable style icon: “Just wonderful. Has continued to give hope to men like myself who dabble in corduroy and suede.”

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Some of the answers showed a familiarity suggesting the commenter may be a frequent visitor, with Sheffield’s greatest culinary export Henderson’s Relish and the city’s many hills cropping up consistently.

One person summed up brilliantly what a slog it can be getting around Sheffield, writing: “Hills, steeper hills, and when you get to the top of the steeper hill and turn the corner you have a hill that's steeper still.”

Several choices proved divisive, with the out-of-town Meadowhall shopping centre eliciting the usual mixture of love and hate, and one person describing the famous Park Hill flats as a ‘derelict social housing experiment’ – seemingly oblivious to its renaissance as trendy flats and an icon of brulatist architecture.

The subject of trees was unavoidable, with some people thinking fondly of Sheffield as a leafy oasis on the Peak District’s doorstep but others describing how it is now best known beyond the city limits for the tree-felling saga which made national headlines.

Lots of people had clearly only ever driven through Sheffield on the M1, recalling the long-demolished Tinsley cooling towers and the Avesta Steel bison which once stood proudly on Shepcote Lane before being rehoused at Magna Science Adventure Centre in Rotherham.

The 1984 nuclear apocalypse drama Threads still haunts the thoughts of many a viewer, it is apparent, while there was recognition too for the famous Leadmill nightclub and Sheffield's contribution as the UK's first City of Sanctuary for asylum-seekers and refugees.

Some of the more left-field suggestions included ‘men calling each other luv' and ‘competent chip purveyors’.

But let’s spare a thought for those who have yet to experience Sheffield’s delights, like the person who wrote: “Just realised to my genuine horror, I would struggle to be accurate if I had to stick a pin on a blank outline UK map, where Sheffield is! I have just Google Mapped it and am truly horrified even as a past frequent AI/M1 user. Sorry, it's not personal.”