It really gets up my goat!

Does scone rhyme with 'cone' or 'con'?
No, I shan’t nail my colours to the mast on this one. It’s too controversial an issue

A lot of expats on French forums refer to the Maire or the Mairie as Marie. I especially liked a reference to a "small-town Marie".
Not someone to cross.
I hate nuc-u-lar.

Another a-l-mond eater here.
I think that pronunciation was universal across the north-west - I certainly never heard anyone say armond when I was growing up.
I don't think it's a question of correct or incorrect - just an alternative.

I am from The Wirral (was Cheshire) and scone always rhymed with 'con' still does as far as I am concerned. Forty miles further on (still Cheshire) and scone rhymes with cone.

Indeed. Let's do a staw poll. How to you pronounce the following:

Controversy
Deity
Nephew
Migraine
Issue
Ate

These were words which participants in a UCL study were aked to pronounce. Interestingly, the variations were far more age related than geographical or educational background related.

Galen love it, just going down the garden to tell DH

Controversy - stress on first syllable
Deity - dee-ity
Nephew - nefew
Migraine - meegraine
Issue - ishyoo
Ate - ait (my Leicestershire granny always said 'et' but we didn't copy her.

In the west riding when I was growing up it was always ahmund. Always scone to rhyme with cone. Interestingly everyone also said plarster and marster but never farster because that would have been posh. When I spoke about a Marstercard not that many years ago I was laughed at by my OH who is from the welsh borders. In the East Midlands it would always be master with a short a sound. I think my vowels are all over the place now but I'm definitely not posh.

CON-trov-er-sy
DAY-it-y
NEV-u
MEE-grain(unless speaking French in which case me-GRAINE)
Ishoo
8

We said 'ahmund' in Derbyshire when I was growing up nightowl and scon to rhyme with one. But, I've mentioned before, my mother is Mrs Bucket!

Strangely though, we didn't say marster, plarster or farster.

con- trov -er-sy
Day-ity
Nefew
Meye-grain
Ishoo
Ait (but sometimes the 'ett' comes back )

No kitty that was a strange anomaly around Sheffield/ Rotherham/ Barnsley I believe. It sounds really odd to me now but I never heard anything else when I was a child.

con-*trov*ersy
day-ity
ne-few
meye-graine
ishoo
ett

I've just remembered they also said 'mester' as in 'mester smith' or 'take it to the 'mester' meaning 'man'. Marster was a quite different use of the word as in 'the school marster' or to 'marster' something.

jane we are speaking the same language . Despite my odd beginnings.

Thinking about it, sometimes 8 sometimes et.
Fascinating conversations on the web about whether et is posh or common.
I remember my electrocution teacher giving me hell about thea-tre and not thea-eter.

Same as jane and nightowl for the pronunciations.

Same as nightowl - sometimes 8 and sometimes et - depends on the sentence!

oh yes the little tomato inside is very edible, I love them Kittylester.

?

No, I don't have a cleaner for my tiny flat, but I had one for our large house when I was a head teacher and also studying for a higher degree and chauffeuring around two daughters. Why not?
It is just a matter of historical chance that words are pronounced in a certain way in the home counties. There is no right or wrong about it.
I have lost much of my Salford accent, having left Lancashire when I was 22, but when I was teaching and lecturing the important thing was to speak clearly and be understood. There is much snobbery still about accents - I found it quite funny when Tony Blair tried to 'dumb down' his RP accent - very patronising!

How do you pronounce chiropodist or do you opt out and say podiatrist? Are they one and the same thing anyway?

Kiropodist. By analogy with other words derived from Greek such as charisma.

* Greatnan* you seem to have fitted more careers, degrees and travels into your life than I'd have thought possible especially having had your girls so young and being a one-parent family.
Respect.

I wasn't a one parent family, Aka - at least , not until I got divorced when my daughters were 14 and 16. Yes, I have had a very interesting life - I have a low boredom threshold! I didn't always change careers voluntarily - I had to sell my conveyancing business when the law was changed in 1987. I was a late starter, having married at 18 and had children in my early twenties, so I was 31 when I completed my first degree and started teaching. I left after nine years, having become Head of a large remedial service. (That was what it was called, before anyone makes a comment!) I then worked for a retired English company director in Monaco, and had a spell in Brussels as a financial consultant before returning to England and setting up my business. I was almost 50 when I joined the Inland Revenue as a graduate trainee tax inspector.
I retired to France in 2002 and will end up in New Zealand - but not yet!