Correct pronunciation

[PookieDo]

Just listening to the radio with DD
For some reason the way this word is said in one of the ways below sets my teeth on edge

Word: issue

Is it
i-shoo

Or
iss-you

It's-you

Sorry, Iss-you

Ishoo

Ish- oo

It's ishoo... or issyou if you're weird 🤣

Ishoo sounds better
Issyou is a bit posh

Ish you

Iss you is Teresa May isn't it?

But there's something else she says weird too - escapes me at the moment.

I say ish yu

I say ish-you

I say both, depends how fast I'm talking. Iss-you if I'm talking slowly, ish-oo if I'm talking fast/taking the piss

I am an accent and dialect coach and have studied phonetics.

Breaking the two pronunciations down into phonemes, or units of speech, the “older” pronunciation of this word (tends to be used by Received Pronunciation speakers of 50 and above, in my experience) uses the “s” phoneme follower by the “y” phoneme, (three-term label “voiced palatial ”) and is pronounced “issyou”. More modern pronunciation (as a general rule of thumb, used by RP speakers younger than 50) is “isshue”. Rather than using the two separate phonemes described above, this uses just one: the voiceless postalveolar fricative, or “sh”.

Neither is “correct”, as such. I am originally from Belfast and speakers of my native accent consistently use the latter pronunciation (regardless of the age of the speaker, as we obviously do not speak RP in NI). But I have changed to “issyou” as I think it sounds nicer and uses more sounds so, quantitatively at least, represents “better” diction.

Iss-yoo is correct but ish-yoo is far more usual

maybe it depends whether you mean

an issue of a magazine
an issue to be discussed
our children.

I wouldn't say iss-you, but then I am pretty common.

Urgh I hate it when people say ‘iss-you.’ It just makes me shudder. It’s how Neil’s dad from the Inbetweeners would say it.

Most people I know say ‘ishoo.’

I say ishoo but iss-you sounds fine. I hate tiss-you for tissue though.

Without being inappropriate, iss-yoo sounds a bit gentile to me - sort of "Brian Sewell". if you will.

@millicentmartha I know what you mean! To me, “tissyou” sounds like a pisstake or like something a character from an Oscar Wilde play would say! I draw the line at “tissyou”.

I just don’t know why iss-you makes me shudder
I know it is better diction but still!

Iss-you

Ishoo

ISS-you is correct but very few people say it now so people assume it's wrong.

Don't get me started on 'ate' ...

I’m from Essex I have no H’s 😂