Do you hiss or do you shoo?

Not sure but I think it is American. I'm with your GK

Ishoo. Appreciate with a soft c. ChrisTian. Right mixed bag(s), me!

PS not bothered about how other people say them. There are bound to be variations.

As long as people understand what I say it doesn't matter too much, but that ultra-careful pronunciation (have you got a tiss-yew?) gets up my nose too, Gk.

I say aitch for h, but lately a lot of people seem to haitch!

Much of this developed from Mrs Thatcher's elocution lessons when she was aspiring to be PM. She never lost her lower middle class vowels, just dropped her voice a few tones. Iss-yu, involved with a long o and so on.

I used to know someone who always talked about Christ-mas, emphasising the T.

Schedule or skedule? Controversy on con-tro (stress) - versy? For (stress) mid-able or for-mid (stress-) -able?

Have heard an Australian or two iss yuing! Skedule is very American.

I thought schedule was the English way of pronouncing it, while it's 'skedule' in America.

If we say shedule, why don't we say shool? By analogy with skool, skedule should be OK.

shoo. (I thought this was going to be about scaring cats out of the garden)

Why do we say leftenant, not lieutenant?

Yes. That's an odd one isn't it.

my SiL Janet says Chris-t-mas and for some reason refers to londry rather than laundry! was she the person you knew absent??

www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-19576,00.html

for a variety of ideas re lieutenant!

Heard a couple of young Australian women on the train the other day laughing at English spelling/pronunciation.. they were laughing at the town Woking which they had thought was Wok-ing when newly arrived in UK and also Godalming which they thought was Go-dal-ming as opposed to Goddle-ming! Tricky language to read is English!

My MIL was a 'shirr-op-podist" to me (Serf Efrican pronunciation), and I'd be told by my (Scottish) inlaws - "You don't say, sheh-mist, do you?" So depending on whether I was talking to South Africans, or to my in-laws, I would swtich between' kir-ro-po-dist' and 'shirr-op-podist'. Then, lo and behold - she was a 'per-dia-trist'! (I love my MIL BTW). One of the directors at my work loves telling me that I am 'inner-vitive' when I always thought i was in-no-vative with the emphasis on the 'vay'. Hard to keep up!

Blimey! I've always said 'shirropodist' - never knew it was incorrect!

I heard an American pronounce Ewell in Surrey as E Well, but possibly could be forgiven, because in fact it's pronounced Yule and maybe you need a little local knowledge to know that. Did sound funny though!

I say shiROPudist but KYropracter

Yes - me too, Elegran.

Bananas, that reminds of my grandson, then aged 5, who announced to his parents that he had seen a field of ee wees. Easy enough to understand when it's written but it took a little while for them to realise he was talking about ewes. He had seen, but never heard the word.

Think ee wees sounds really sweet annodomini. Many years ago when my son discovered all my old Beatle, Led Zeppelin, Jiimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd etc albums he asked me if he could have all my old vin yel!

You can now get round the pronunciation of 'chiropodist' by calling him/her a 'podiatrist'.

Then you have to pronounce "podiatrist". You can't win.

You could just say "I'm going to get my feet done"