How Do You Pronounce "lido"?

A lido is a recreational facility which includes a swimming pool or stretch of water, such as Ruislip Lido.

The word may have come into English from Italian, and, indeed, Venice has a lido which is an 11 mile long sandbar. Perhaps it was the Romans, with their love of bathing, who brought the word to Britain.

In English, there seem to be two competing ways of pronouncing the word.

In the UK people tend to say "lie-doe" - "lie" as in "to lie down", and "doe" as in "doe, a deer".

But, across the Atlantic, particularly in Florida, people are more inclined to pronounce it "lee-doe". Here the "doe" is exactly the same, but the "lee" is as in the name Lee.

So which is correct? Even the BBC, renowned for being pernickety on pronunciation, cannot decide.

It looks as though lido is just one of those words which has more than one form of pronunciation.

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