Nappy. I have never heard the word diaper used for anything in the UK.
So would you say “the police is going to arrest him”?
Or would you say, “the police are going to arrest him”?
Nappy.
If a diaper is a baby butt cover, is an adult diaper a manhole cover?
…anyway, I do know how to pronounce Edinburgh, and I’m pretty sure I knew it even before I visited that fair city. Still haven’t got used to the Brit way with collective nouns, though.
Aussie here. We don’t use diaper either (but due to the media we all know what it refers to). I was quite bemused when learning illumination to come across this: http://www.pitt.edu/~medart/menuglossary/diaper.htm
MRW
Well, that would all Depend.
Don’t be silly. Only Enzedders eat Wetabix. 
What is the chequered history of ‘diaper’? I always wondered whether it fit with such words as ‘diathermy’ and ‘diagram’. I do not have an etymological dictionary, and rather wish I did.
That’s a fair point. However, you could argue that the police generally act more as individuals (eg, individual officers and detectives generally working towards the same end, but independently), and therefore the singular noun isn’t really functioning as a singular entity. The entire police force is not going to descend upon the poor guy en masse, one or two officers will take him into custody.
On the other hand, to take villa’s example of “England were crap yesterday”, the singular noun England is referring to the collective sports team as one singular unit. Similarly, when I’ve heard a BBC report that “Parliament are discussing whatever”, it’s parliament as one unit.
Also, I don’t claim that it’s logically flawless, it’s just a pet peeve.
I suspect it’s dues to their failure to operate as one singular unit, as per usual, in which case the plural is most appropriate 
Anyway, the reverse is one of my pet peeves, on seeing the occasional CNN world sport report tackling the Premiership. However, if there’s been nothing happening anywhere else, and they end up going through lower-league English matches, it’s fun to hear the terrible mispronunciations 
If I assure you that I have never said Eye-rack, Eye-ran, or Eye-talian, will you tell me the correct way to pronounce Edinburgh?
(And if you find ‘diaper’ wrong, imagine how Americans react to ‘nappy’, short for ‘napkin’ …)
Maybe Don Imus should have used that as his defense.
Me, I never understood the whole UK “zed” thing. Can’t you guys pronouce the letter Z? Waitaminute - is that why you use “naught” instead of zero?
On a related note, do you call ZZ Top “Zed Zed Top”?
Tough titty, ya pommy bastiches! I’m gonna pronunciate them words like I always do: Eye-rack, Eye-ran, Eye-talians.
And j666? It’s pronounced “Glass-go.”
No.
Nice.
OK…so what’s the reason for using “zed” sometimes but not other times? Not trying to be snarky - just curious.
Um… okay… so how do you pronounce Edinburgh?? 
Isn’t it pronounced like it’s spelled???
Click on the speaker icon here.
The American pronunciation of ‘leisure’ drives me bananas. I can cope with most of the rest but not that one.
The Iraq thing sounds a bit jarring, but doesn’t bother me. How do you guys pronounce Paris or France? I draw the line at Notre Dame though.
Do you really pronounce “gh”?