I just don't know how to hear myself

So, today is Tuesday…

Only three more days until the weekend! Hurrah!

This week, Friend Who Knows Big Words has got me working on my pronunciation and vocabulary.

With the former, I had an elocution lesson on the District Line with her, while discussing her recent French holiday to Marseille.

Hmmmmmm

See, after the Versailles incident, this word is scarier to me than a whole sentence full of schizophrenics and Cadogan Halls. So I asked her…

‘How was your weekend in Marseillezzzzzzzzzz?’

And she looked at me the same way as when I told her I was going to peruse the shops.

‘Mar-say,’ she corrected me, in a way that only my close friends and family can. It still makes me want to dig myself a shallow grave in which to lie down in, but if a stranger corrected me, I'd probably dig them a shallow grave to lie down in.

Anyway, after blushing a rather violent shade of red, I tried again...

‘Mar-say’

At which point, Friend Who Knows Big Words burst out laughing.

Apparently I sounded like Del Boy from Only Fools And Horses when I said it.

And so it went on, like a tennis volley:

‘Mar-say,’ said Friend Who Knows Big Words

‘Mar-say,’ I said, while she snorted with laughter and I struggled to tell the difference between what she was saying, what I said in the first place and what I was now struggling to say!

In the end we gave up and I went back to practising schizophrenic and Versailles with the people sitting opposite us giving us very strange looks.

But I really do have a lot to learn from Friend Who Knows Big Words. I mean, she knows a lot of big words, and I want to know more. So in addition to the elocution lessons, I've started doing the crossword in The Guardian and The Times. Right now, I am rubbish and think that I'd be better with a Take A Break ArrowWord book, but I am going to persevere...

8 across: (horse) mottled with two colours

7 letters

Answers on a postcard please!