the ongoing English usage

[Goddlefrood]

> Goddlefrood:
> Can you clarify which sense of common you are using?

Leaving that in, because it remains unamswered.
 
> Could be this is just a north / south thing. Pronuciation
> wise it sounds like shuh where I came from ... It's very
> common up North, Liverpool excepted, where sheh would be
> a closer approximation
 
> Geoff:
> I think this is more a problem of how you write your version 
> phonetically. To me "shuh" would be akin to the sound of 
> "shove". 

Goddlefrood:

OK, cast your mind back (and I appreciate it needs casting further 
back than many ;-)) to how you pronounced the sounds of letters 
when learning the alphabet. The sound of e is very different from 
the sound of u, which again is different from the sound of o. I 
stand by shuh for shire, which is exactly how it sounds to me and 
the denizens of Cheshire, which accent I retain, albeit adjusted 
so that Fijians can understand me.

Are you really trying to say that you pronounce shove as shuve?

> Geoff:

> Having grown up with a North Country accent, then lived 
> in London for 45 years and now being surrounded with West 
> Country accents, I have a fairly wide  experience of UK 
> accents and I'd stick to "sheh" – or possibly "sher"

Goddlefrood:

A brief look at the Godlefrood biography would show a wide, 
possibly even wider variety of domiciles with England. Briefly:

Bristol - until age 8
Cheshire - sporadically until 28
Shropshire - at school
Oxford - ditto
London - University and after

Relatives on father's and mother's sides all from Yorkshire and 
Northumberland. 

IOW, I've heard just about every accent you might care to think 
of, and I have to say that sheh is not how I pronounce it, nor is 
it how people I've heard pronounce it, excepting the south and 
Liverpool. Your position remains unchanged and I'm not for turning 
it, but you fully appreciate with your wide experience that there 
are differing pronunciations throughout the benighted isles, so 
here I am stating how I pronounce shire and I leave you to say 
it how you will. Somerset dropped it years ago, I understand,
possibly due to phonetics being argued in the Saracen's head or
whereever back in the day.