I must have imagined my grandparents and relatives calling it hookah (huqqah) then . . . .
Meh, fair enough. Every Pakistani and Indian person I know calls it shisha, all my Arab friends call it shisha, and everyone in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria (the places I've lived in) call it shisha. In my experience it's only the Americanized Arabs (the ones who grew up in the States) who say "hookah" and they get ridiculed in much the same way as an American would calling football "soccer"...
Pedantry aside, I put milk in my...hookah (just sounds wrong man ) makes for a thicker and smoother smoke.
I and everyone I know here calls it shisha BUT whenever I go back home I say huqqah because that is what they know it as