Sorry if I confused things. To add to all this my boss calls his wife "anata"

Very very very common between husband and wife (usually wife to husband).

Really? I thought it was rude etc etc?

Not when it is between partners in a relationship. That is the #1 proper use of it.

I am having trouble visualizing an S sound in there...

Chances are, one of them (host mother) was stricter on the pronunciation than the other. People will excuse you for pronunciation mistakes if it is "close enough to be understood". This is particularly true if your Japanese isn`t that good.

Ha! Finally! It's about time I discovered it!

Not a few Tokyoites make little distinction between ひ and し. I hear しと（人）、しどい（酷い＝ひどい） and believe it or not even コーシー（コーヒー） around me. :p

Quoting from Wiki:
"The Shitamachi dialect (下町言葉 Shitamachi-kotoba), or Edo dialect (江戸弁 Edo-ben), a fast-fading dialect of old families from the eastern Tokyo area of Shitamachi, is another example of a Tokyo dialect that differs from standard Japanese. This dialect is primarily known for its lack of distinction between some phonemes which are considered wholly distinct in all other Japanese dialects. Most famous is the decreased distinction between hi (ひ) and shi (し), so that hidoi (酷い terrible) becomes shidoi, and shichi (七 seven) becomes hichi. Though it also includes a few distinctive words, today it is largely indistinguishable from the standard speech of Tokyo other than the phonemic difference."

Thank you for that - I rarely go to Tokyo so had no idea. :D

Although it seems that in this case, the mother would be the one using the older style - not the younger friend. I guess it would depend on family.

I have seen a lot of foreigners who cannot pull off the Japanese ひ sound (or ふ and ほ for that matter)... I personally pronounce ひ sort of closer to... hsi? But there are definitely no one around me who says し for it. :)

No prob, SHADOW-you didn't confuse things. I just lost track of my thought process back there. :P

;) I didn't asked my friend to grade my pronunciation, I asked her how she pronounces the word. She told me she says 'O-TO-KO-NO-SHTO (just as I had learned) but my host mom said to pronounce it (and this, also, is her own interpretation) 'O-TO-KO-NO-HiTO', sort of whispering or blowing the 'Hi' part.

I'm not sure if this was misunderstood, but the reason I wrote 'OtokonoSHito' with the emphasis on 'SH' is because I intended it to be read 'SHTO' rather than 'SHEETO'.

That's interesting about the Shitamachi dialect.
I'm kind of going off topic again , but can anyone tell me if the Japanese language is being mutilated as quickly as English? It's incredible, the rate at which English seems to be deteriorating. We've given new meanings to old words and perverted meanings; we've changed nouns to verbs; kids-and probably many adults-can't spell worth crap; we've developed stupid expressions like the one I just used; txting is rampant-and xtrmly irritating...is the Japanese language suffering as badly?

This is one of the reasons I dislike romaji... A ひ sound closer to a し would have made sense, but as was written seemed like you meant sheeto. :)

There is no such thing as mutilation of language. Other than those that are disappearing (and not even then in many cases), there is no suffering going on.

Ask yourself - at what point was English "pure" and not filled with what you consider "deterioration"? At what stage can we say it is "perfect" and as it should forever remain?

Language evolves. A language that ceases to evolve is one that is falling out of use, and one that cannot evolve is pretty much doomed. Every year countless expressions come into and fall out of use, countless words are coined or have their meanings change, grammar norms change a bit more gradually but still at a constant pace. Trying to stop this is pointless and a bit silly, really.

A "joke" I hear between married couples is them asking themselves after how many years of marriage do they engage in this common exchange:

W: あなた～

H:　なんだい？

It is a very "married couple" exchange