She may be the queen of the Oscars, with a staggering 18 nominations and three wins over a 35-year period, but Meryl Streep might be surprised to hear that she is also unsurpassed when it comes to being mentioned in acceptance speeches at the ceremony. A new survey by Slate magazine suggests that winners over the past dozen years have namechecked the star more times than they have thanked God.

Streep topped the list of individual luminaries named during acceptance speeches, ahead of God, Sidney Poitier and Oprah Winfrey. She was thanked by four out of the 47 individual Oscar-winners since 2002, compared with three for the Almighty and two each for Poitier and Winfrey.

Not surprisingly, the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is high up on the list of those thanked, with 32 mentions. Directors are even more popular, with 42 mentions, while agents, producers and co-stars are also highly likely to get thank yous, with family members falling in just behind.

Spouses (25 mentions), children (21) and writers (19) are the next most likely to be thanked. Surprisingly, fellow nominees have only been thanked 17 times by the past 47 winners.

Slate notes that early influences – whether grandparents, former directors or producers – are increasingly popular. Female stars tend to have a longer list of people to thank, and one best supporting actor winner failed to thanked anyone at all: George Clooney, picking up the 2006 prize for Syriana, joked that he would now not be winning best director for that year's Good Night and Good Luck. He went on to praise the Academy for its progressiveness, and promptly walked off stage without namechecking anyone.

This year's Academy Awards ceremony, the 86th, will be held on 2 March at the Dolby theatre in Los Angeles.

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