Fire fire.

Having been given a 3DS, I now spend a lot of time playing Brain Training, a game I already had on the DS lite. Don't ask.

One of the games on either Brain Training or More Brain Training is a syllable counting game. Easy enough, you'd think.

I make typos, and annoyingly at the moment (baby brain, or so I tell myself as that's preferable to ageing as a concept) I forget a lot or say/do entirely differently to that which I had planned. So mistakes are a-plenty. But woe betide anyone who suggests I am incorrect when I am not. (I'm likely to cry).

Dr Kawashima marked me incorrect when I was not. And so I hate him.

The word we disagree on was "fire". I say one syllable, he says two.

So I ask my boys how to say it. They dutifully answer "fy-a" and I curse Fireman Sam. Love the Welsh; have been way over subjected to Fireman Sanctimonious Sam.

This is what great uncle google says:

fire/fī(ə)r/

Which I think means that you can add in the extra syllable if you like and is entirely non committal of uncle googs.

The Free Dictionary agrees with me. One syllable.

Oxford dictionary gives this:

ˈfʌɪə

which I don't understand. I think that may be the Welsh way.