If you don't want to be an accountant....

This is taken from a recent piece in the Times Diary: 

Stephen Fry tells a story about the careers master at his school who asked the boys what they wanted to be and then wrote that down as his recommendation for them.

If they didn't know what they wanted to be, apparently the careers master put down 'accountant'.

Back then Fry didn't know what he wanted to be but clearly didn't want to be advised to become an accountant. So, when it was his turn he said his ambition was to be a careers master.

The master instead put him down as 'comedian'.

Initial questions for accountancy bodies

Back in 2003, my (then) teenage son was field testing an early version of a temporary website intended to encourage young people to choose a career in tax. It was a joint venture between large professional bodies, Government departments and the big 4 firms of accountants. 

The Tax Careers website included a list of the various professional bodies - which were identified only by their initials.

My son asked various questions: "What's a Kyott? What's an I - cow? What's an Acker? And what's an Eye-Kas?"

All those involved with the project used abbreviations all the time. But we'd forgotten that our audience of young people new to the profession would have no idea what the letters stood for. 

Following that initial feedback from my son we spelled them all out in full.

More recently someone asked the then President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation why everyone referenced the Institute as "See, Eye, Oh, Tee" rather than "See-ott"? 

The emphatic reply apparently was that "See-ott sounds terrible". 

Indeed. But marginally better than "Ky-ott" which was how my son had tried to pronounce the letters!

The other answers to my son's questions are ICAEW, ACCA and ICAS.