Sh vs. S, Alliteration or Not?

To continue this conversation https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=86885&type=att, on whether or not these things are, in fact alliterative enough for Added Alliterative Appeal and other alliteration based tropes. The ATT thread was getting long, and this was suggested.

I'll start by saying that to me personally, "S" and "Sh" may sound different, but they're still "S"-sounds. The "h" doesn't turn it into a different letter or change the fact that it starts with an "S", so I file it under "S" and all other "S"-related sounds.

My last post in the ATT thread discussed how there's no radical difference between "Sh" and, say, "St" to someone who doesn't consider "Sh" a special case. Either they're both different enough to not be alliteration, or they're both "S" sounds and are alliterative. In fact, I'd personally consider "St" and "Sc" to sound more distinctive than "Sh" does.

I agree that St is certainly a distinct sound, as is Sc/Sk, but Sh does not logically follow from S+H. If anything, S+H would be pronounced "Suh", which it plainly isn't. Further, in linguistics, it is a phoneme (I believe that is the correct word) of its own. Sk and St are not, to my knowledge.

As I just said on the ATT thread, I do think "S" and "Sh" sound different. That's not under dispute.

They just don't sound different enough. They're not different enough for me to consider them different completely. They're both starting with "S", so they're both "S" sounds.

That's all it boils down to. I don't consider the "Sh" to be so different that it shouldn't be paired with "S" in an alliterative sense.

And plus, some people find /s/ and /sh/ the same sound.

That video linked seems to indicate that it is a specific accent, or possibly a speech or hearing error. The difference sounds fairly clear cut to me, and the sounds are extremely different to my ear, certainly enough that they shouldn't be considered alliterative.

To use some examples that started discussion, Shooting Superman and Secret Shop are supposedly not aliterative, yet, if I'm understanding correctly, "Striking Superman" and "Secret Spot" apparently would be.

That makes no sense to me. They're all S words starting with S sounds and, as noted, Shooting and Shop actually sound closer to their respective companion words.

What makes the SH so special that it warrants this specific exclusion?

To repeat a question I asked earlier, is there anything that says, explicitly and unequivacally, that S and SH can not be aliterative with one another in the English language?

Edited by sgamer82 on Apr 16th 2020 at 1:40:59 PM

Like I said on ATT, it's a language issue. English is not my first language and to me 's' and 'sh' are very different sounds. If anything, to me 's' is closer to 'z' than to 'sh'.

It doesn't help that in English the 'sh' sound can be represented by different combinations of letters, depending on the word. For example, as far as I can tell, 'sure' and 'show' start with the same 'sh' sound. At the same time 'sure' and 'so' do not start with the same sound despite starting with the same letter.

That's also an issue, yeah. In English, "Sure" does sound like it would start with "Sh", but since it doesn't, would it technically be considered alliteration?

For English speakers, we think the sounds are different, but not wildly so. "S" and "Sh" both sound closer to each other than "Sc" and "S" do, and there's other wildly different sounds in letters like "C" (which can be both a soft "s"-like sound and a hard "k"-like sound), "G" (which can sound like "Guh" or like a "j"-sound), and "E" (Either "eh" or "eeee"), just to name a few.

The difference I hear between "S" and "Sh" just aren't that different compared to every other potential variation.

And it just seems arbitrary to exclude SH from allitteration with other S words when S words that sound even more different would still be counted.

This makes me feel you can't distinguish between orthography (what is written) and phonetics (what is pronounced).

• Shooting Shop (it is alliterative because they both start with SH, written s + h, pronounced /sh/, /ꭍ/ in international phonetic alphabet )
• Choosing Chef (tch — u: — z — i — n sh — eh — f) — not alliterative despite starting with the same letters (as is written). It's not alliterative because it's pronounced with different consonants.
• Shooting Superman (sh — u: — t — i — n s — u — p — er — m — ae — n) Different sounds.

Ah. So, I'm going to change my stance. I called a relation who is an English major, hoping to get some support on this. They say that it would be considered visual alliteration, and would be considered audible alliteration in most cases, because there's no clear cut division between Alliteration and Not-Alliteration. I'll change my argument to that this should be determined on a CBCB, and I'm willing to concede further, if just to get a firm policy on this Alliteration thing.

Sh is not excluded from alliteration though. If you alliterate with other sh words.

Or, to our ears the difference isn't that radical and sounds like "St" and "Sc" are equally as distinctive, if not more, and drawing the difference at "Sh" specifically does sound really arbitrary.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 16th 2020 at 3:48:00 PM

Different sounds that all start with S. Again, it's not that they aren't different at all, it's that they aren't different enough to exclude. Not when obviously different sounds are included

Edited by sgamer82 on Apr 16th 2020 at 1:49:44 PM

I will counter your argument that those differences all start with S with the following. They do not, they merely have the sound represented by an S followed by an H, the sound itself does not contain a hissable sound. However, S can alliterate with Sh, much as words can be twisted to rhyme with one another. The question is whether or not they would in certain cases.

"they merely have the sound represented by an S" is kind of my key point here. What follows after that sound doesn't really matter.

I agree.

If they sound so very similar, would you consider /f/ and /th/ close enough to be alliterative, too? For example, threatening face. They have about the same relationship as s and sh as far as consonants in English go.

No, you've missed my point. The S is not ultimately part of the sound represented by Sh. Therefore, there is no S in Sh.

Edited by Florien on Apr 16th 2020 at 12:56:40 PM

No, because that's a T sound and an F sound. Two completely different letters and sounds.

my point is that it is, otherwise the sound would just be H

Edited by sgamer82 on Apr 16th 2020 at 1:58:25 PM

Um, no. Shall I write features of those phonemes? :-)

There is no /s/-sound in /sh/-sound. Often transcribed as /ꭍ/. You should check some dictionaries that transcribe pronunciation.

Edited by XFllo on Apr 16th 2020 at 10:01:10 AM

If anything, F would be alliterative with Ph because they literally make the same sound so much so that they're basically interchangeable. "Th" and "F"...aren't. Not even close, actually.

Again, there's a major language barrier here. We just fundamentally hear and think of these sounds differently, though trying to tell some native English speakers that we're wrong about the way our language sounds is a little weird.

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 16th 2020 at 4:01:57 AM

If I may point out, 'sp' is not a single sound, it's two sounds - 's' and 'p'. Same with 'st' - it's two sounds, 's' and 't'.

Take the word 'pot' and add the sound 's' in front of it - you get the word 'spot'. It starts with an 's', but the 'p' is also there.

Or take 'teal' and add 's' in front of it - you get 'steal'. Again both the 's' and 't' sounds are there, the 't' is not gone.

Th and F do alliterate though, though it might depend if the Th is a Þ th or an ð th. I think the key problem here is whether or not groups of two or more letters can be considered a single sound for alliterative purposes. I'll argue they can, because english has dumped ð and such things to replace them with things such as "th", but the sound hasn't fundamentally changed.

Edited by Florien on Apr 16th 2020 at 1:01:32 AM