Sh vs. S, Alliteration or Not?

Question:

• Sure
• Ship
• Relation
• Passion

Which of these words include the 'sh' sound and which ones include the 's' sound?

All of them have an "sh" sound except "Relation", which is a "t" sound. But that also depends on accents and emphasis and pronunciation far more than the actual letters in the words.

And yet according to this discussion, "Sure" would be alliterative but "Shark" wouldn't.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 16th 2020 at 4:34:22 AM

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All of them.

Proving our point that letters do not equal pronunciation. Also, sure would be visually alliterative, but not audibly alliterative, but also it would be because alliteration is extremely ill defined.

Incidentally, this might be a Shibboleth case, where our regional accents ultimately do not line up, and thus, alliteration itself is variable between us.

Edited by Florien on Apr 16th 2020 at 1:34:05 AM

"Golden" and "Gummies" both start with the same 'g' sound, so I would call that "alliteration". The other two do not: "Cinnamon" starts with an 's', "candy" starts with a 'k'; "easy" starts with an 'ee', "ending" starts with an "eh".

While I'm assuming this is a trick question, my answer is the same as others: All of them, because to me an sh sound is an s sound. I'm not sure if "tion" counts as an actual S sound, but it's got the same ring to it nonetheless.

Yeah, I realized after and changed it to "Great Giles". For some reason, I tricked myself into thinking "Gummies" sounded differently when it doesn't. -shrug-

Anyway, the reason I asked is because the lines being drawn here seem arbitrary. Sometimes you guys consider it to be solely about the sound, but then don't consider "St" and "Sc" to also be distinct even though to my ears they're more distinct, and some would also consider the ones I mentioned to still be alliterative even if they sound completely different.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 16th 2020 at 4:40:44 AM

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War Jay, check "relation" or "action" in any dictionary that transcribes pronunciation.

I promise you there is no /t/ sound.

Maybe not to your ears. But to me, the "T" in relation sounds different from the "Sh" in "Ship". But it's probably an accent thing, as you're right that there's no literal "t" sound- I was talking about the sound a "t" makes at the beginning of a word, or really at all. The "Tuh" sound. Whatever it may be referred to.

In other words, "Relation" to me doesn't sound like "Relay-shun", but "Relate-tun".

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 16th 2020 at 4:40:18 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

This debate is flying by! Wow! Okay but seriously, alliteration is not a matter of orthography.

Alliteration has to do with sounds, with phonemes. In English, "S" and "Sh" represent different sounds. For one, "S" can refer to the /s/ or /z/ phonemes (alveolar fricatives, unvoiced and voiced respectively) while "Sh" only refers to the /ʃ/ phoneme (unvoiced post-alveolar fricative). Now, if we're talking German, then yes, "S" and "Sh" would effectively be the same, given that the unvoiced post-alveolar fricative in German is written as "sch" rather than "sh."

Link for reference of English fricatives, with pictures.

Orthography is not a good measurement of alliteration. For one thing, borrowed words — which people eventually forget were ever borrowed in the first place — will not use English spelling rules. Take, for instance, the word "measure," which uses "s" to represent the voiced post-alveolar fricative, rather than either of the alveolar fricatives. However, English words do not use "s" to represent that phoneme. All words with "s" as the voiced post-alveolar fricative are French.

It's like everyone is talking in circles. Added Alliterative Appeal only concerns itself with the phonemes, not the letters themselves.

(Also yes my post has a bunch of "S" related puns.)

In linguistics, this is a known phenomenon. Native speakers think they pronounce a word differently than the way they actually do. That does not mean the word is actually pronounced the way they think it is. For example, does anyone pronounce the T in "city"? No, they pronounce it as a D, even though everyone here would likely insist that they say it as a T.

You do not pronounce the T in "relation." You just think you do.

See, this is why I used the quoteblock markup because this debate is flying by at an incredible speed.

Edited by WaterBlap on Apr 16th 2020 at 3:43:30 AM

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

Unfortunately, we're running into an issue where to different people, different words and letter combinations just sound different.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Sure, my standards for alliteration are about the same.

• Super School — alliterative (both /s/)

• Sewage Stopper — alliterative (both /s/)

• Small Spark — alliterative (both /s/)

• Cinnamon Candy — not (these are /s/ and /k/)

• Great Giles — not sure how you pronounce Giles — if hard g as in gag, then yes, alliteration. If soft g like gee or jay, then no, not alliterative

• Easy Ending — not

• Silver Shark — not

x5 St is more distinct because those sounds are fundamentally separable, that is, if you say S, and then T, as in Sends-Tar, it could also be written as Send Star with no significant difference. Whereas if you say S and then H, as in Sends-Hate, it would not sound the same as Send Shate.

Edited by Florien on Apr 16th 2020 at 1:45:22 AM

In case anyone missed what I just said about pronunciation sounding different to different people:

In linguistics, this is a known phenomenon. Native speakers think they pronounce a word differently than the way they actually do. That does not mean the word is actually pronounced the way they think it is. For example, does anyone pronounce the T in "city"? No, they pronounce it as a D, even though everyone here would likely insist that they say it as a T.

You do not pronounce the T in "relation." You just think you do.

Also, I think we need to understand that different dialects pronounce things differently. Like in the Detroit region where "caught" and "cot" use different phonemes but in literally all other parts of the English-speaking word those words are produced with different phonemes.

Like c'mon, y'all, let's just focus on reasonable alliteration.

Edited by WaterBlap on Apr 16th 2020 at 3:49:28 AM

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

I've been trying to stick to the sounds myself. In fact a couple things that may lend some insight to where I'm coming from:

1. When I think of sh, I think of the "shh" sound people make when they put they finger to their lips and make the sound to tell someone to be quiet. To me, that's no different that any other word that starts with and/or makes an S sound.
2. Something I'm increasingly realizing may be relevant, as a child I briefly went to speech therapy because I had trouble pronuncing SH vs S sounds. I'm not sure if that's factoring into how I'm hearing them but I'm realizing it's something I should note.

For one, if not both, reasons, I'm simply not seeing the distinction others are when they treat "sh" like it's its own thing, because to me it isn't.

Edited by sgamer82 on Apr 16th 2020 at 2:50:59 AM

In other words, it's a language (or some cases accent) issue and the best we can do is agree to disagree - because different people hear things differently.

Edited by shadowblack on Apr 16th 2020 at 11:45:39 AM

Multiple issues going on here.

• Alliteration is based on auditory phonemes
• Alliteration is based on auditory allophones
• Alliteration is based on written letters

None of those opinions are held by the majority of English-speakers; this is not something clearly resolved outside of the wiki. On top of that, we've got people arguing that the allophone listeners are basing their opinions on the letters.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

War Jay, if you check some English phonetics and phonology, you'll see that there is no sound or phoneme /t/ in the pronunciation of the word relation or action. It's backed up by tons of research and experiments. That's not something somebody just came up with.

Okay, cool cool, doesn't change the way I hear the word so it's irrelevant. To me, even if it's just to me, I don't hear an "sh" sound in Relation, even if it's technically there.

Like, this is such a dumb thing to debate with me over, I couldn't care less if there's an actual "t" sound or not because it's what I hear. That's not gonna change just because linguistically it's not true.

Genuinely. It doesn't make a difference to me. Just because I can't articulate the exact sound I hear, doesn't mean I don't hear it.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 16th 2020 at 4:51:34 AM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Phonetically, the "t" in "city" is neither. It is often identified with [ɾ], the Spanish tapped R. And this is once again Accent Depundent as it is generally found in North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Northern Ireland; it seems to actually be pronounced with a /t/ in other dialects.

That is an exhaustive list of the options, though. Orthographic, phonemic, and "allophonic" (so to speak).

Linguistics is a science, so I'm sorry but you're wrong. This isn't about differing opinions but differing understandings of the facts.

Someone unironically saying that "s" and "sh" produce the same sounds in English is, as a matter of fact, wrong. Using borrowed words to support the argument is fallacious because those aren't comparable with the English S or English "Sh".

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War Jay, I'm sorry but... would you use anecdotal evidence in other debates? You're good at debating and you clearly understand rhetoric and all that. So... why are you insisting that the way you, specifically and personally, hear a word is how the word is pronounced? Added Alliterative Appeal is not YMMV but if we accept your argument then that would imply that AAA is subjective.

Look at all that shiny stuff ain't they pretty

So, maybe this should be FCFS thing? There should ultimately probably be a Wiki policy decision on this. Either that or take a nuclear, (and frankly, probably utterly ridiculous) option, and make every single entry for Added Alliterative Appeal be required to go through a thread before being added. Because I don't think we are going to get anywhere in reaching a clear, objective standard, even if linguistics says the phenomes are distinct, and even if English says they can alliterate in some circumstances, distinct phenomes or nay. Also, on AAA being subjective, I think it might well be. Accents change alliterative behavior.

Edited by Florien on Apr 16th 2020 at 1:58:21 AM

Well, you have an American accent. https://reallifeglobal.com/american-t-sound/

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Additionally, as I brought up previously, standards for what counts as alliteration have changed massively over the centuries as well. Alliterative verse, a genre relying entirely on the Added Alliterative Appeal in the storytelling itself, operates on alliteration rules completely alien to that found in a modern children's book.

Edited by Albert3105 on Apr 16th 2020 at 2:04:41 AM

Honestly? Because I don't like being told that the way I personally hear my own language is somehow "wrong". Alliteration is based on the sound, right? So to me, it sounds like the words should be alliterative.

Maybe based on actual linguistics, they're not. But this debate wasn't started over what's linguistically agreed upon. It was a debate about whether or not the words sounded different. And only now is everyone bringing out the linguistic facts, things I actually know little about so I can't just go and debate based on that. I can only argue based on what I personally know to be true, and that's inherently subjective.

To me, S and Sh aren't different enough to not be alliteration. Whether that's based on hard facts or just the way I hear the words, it's the way things are. And that's what people kept trying to tell me was wrong- that my own pronunciation of the words was fundamentally incorrect, and that even though in English these sounds are just the blending of two letters, we need to go with the standard set by other languages where they're literally different letters and sounds entirely.

So yeah, it's all anecdotal, but that's because this entire debate started based on everyone's subjective, anecdotal evidence of how they personally hear and think of "S" and "Sh".

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Going by Florien's post from the first page, the isn't a clear, objective standard at all. At least not one that would be known by an active English major.

Edited by sgamer82 on Apr 16th 2020 at 3:12:55 AM