12 DECEMBER 1992, Page 34

Schplit vote

Sir: Couldn't the BBC tell its announcers how to pronounce 'schism'?

On Newsnight recently the Archbishop of Canterbury pronounced it correctly three times as `sizm' (OED). Most announcers say `skism' but on this occasion the inter- viewer three times invented his own com- promise — `shism' — to keep a level play- ing field, I suppose.

A.A.G. Lewis

Wisteria Cottage, 2 Brook Street, Benson, Oxon