Thanks to all who partishipated! With apologies for flu-induced slow reply, here goes:

The three leading entrants were as follows.

Fiberbabe gave us:
Fancy a glass of chardonnay, Seamus? The rationing commission surely shakes their heads with chagrin at the racial tensions in oceanic nations. "Schwa" finds no rational position in the aforementioned composition.... I should have mentioned ~ Tricia feels passionate about these issues. And she thinks your champagne is delicious!
I would tend to discount Seamus as an imported name, of the kind that even now gives some native English speakers qualms about pronunciation; whereas chardonnay and champagne seem to have been more genuinely assimilated – after all, we could have chosen to bastardise the pronunciation to something like tcham-pain, but have accepted the sibilant alternative. So I would score it:

ce oceanic
cha chardonnay, chagrin, champagne
ci racial, Tricia, delicious
sh shakes, should, she
si tensions
sch schwa
ss commission, passionate, issues
su surely
ti rationing, nations, rational, position, mentioned, composition


belligerentyouth gave a good set, which I would slightly condense to:

cea ocean
ch chalet, chandelier
ci technician
sh shown, shadow
s as in sure
si lesion
sch schwa, scholy (??)
ss submission, intermission
tion inertia, motion, contention


Marty played a blinder with his shining examplesh:

I appreciate the mission, even though it has put us under pressure. I was conscious of some tension, but, with the luxury of an internet-enabled machine and the oceans of information available, plus a dash of panache, I was sure that I could initiate a response. But after a while the task began to give me the schist. I felt quite nauseous, especially wondering how the fuchsia I could include 'stanchion'.

Marty claims 17 in that paragraph – I would score it like this:

ce oceans
che panache
chi stanchion, machine
chs fuchsia
cia especially, appreciate
sci conscious
sch schist
se nauseous (??)
si tension
sh dash
ss mission,pressure
su sure
ti initiate, information

Marty remarked “I'm sure there'll be difference of opinion over some pronunciation” – I would be interested to know for example how everyone treats nauseous. Is it nor-se-us or perhaps naw-jeuss, or will you let him in with naw-shh-us? Personally I would have expected one of the first two as more common, tho’ am expecting to be corrected!


Having started with my own list of around ten, I have had time to only run a brief reference, coming up with these examples in one reference* book:

“There are no fewer than thirteen spellings for ‘sh’: shoe, sugar, issue, mansion, mission, nation, suspicion, ocean, conscious, chaperon, schist, fuchsia, and pshaw. “

I therefore propose a composite :
ce oceans
cha chaperon
che panache
ch stanchion, machine, especially, appreciate
chs fuchsia
ci racial, technician
psh pshaw
sci conscious
sch schist
s sure
si tension
sh dash
ss mission, issues
ssu pressure
su sure
ti initiate, information

I include the ‘cha’ and ‘che’ as different since the latter functions with a silent vowel, rather than a sounded vowel that clearly changes the preceding letter.

If you have any challenges, comments or other suggestions you think need adding, feel free to post them here!

(The book goes on to add, BTW, that “an old bit of doggerel for foreign students advises:
Beware of heard,a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it’s said like bed, not bead –
For goodness’ sake, don’t call it deed!” )


I’ll pojzt the conteshtants’ preshies shortly…


*I can thoroughly recommend this book, both as cracking read and good reference, if you have not come across it already:
The Story of English
Robert McCrum, with William Cran and Robert McNeil
Faber & Faber, 1986. ISBN: 0 571 13828 4