Enunciation of the letter S (new and improved?)

Factual Questions
1

As a child I was taught by my mother that the letter S was enunciated by blowing air through the teeth and placing the tongue behind the teeth (without touching) to create the clean hiss sound of S. When I was taught, the distinction was made that there was no involvement from the lips, in fact, they were to be opened to reveal the teeth.

Recently I have noticed many people enunciating the ‘S’ sound by pursing their lips in order to create the sound. It ends up being enunciated as ‘Sf’.

A) What would this sound be called? By touching the teeth with the tongue you can make a sound as ‘sth’ or ‘th’. By pulling the tongue to the back or bottom of the mouth the ‘sh’ sound is made. The former is refered to as a lisp and the latter is refered to as a slur when attempting to enunciate an ‘S’ sound.

B) Is this something that is/was being taught? I understand the narrow distinction and difficulty for some people to learn the difference, or be able to make the distinction (especially as kids).

C) Given the sorts of different sounds that different languages/cultures/dialects use, that the ‘S’ sound was (almost) universal and enunciated the same way. Is this not true?

2

Having trouble understanding what you mean, 'cause I’ve never personally heard this effect. Everybody here in Central Illinois just pronounces “sock”, “safety”, “succotash”, “sandpaper”, and “Santa” with an “s”, not a “sf”.

:confused:

  1. Where are you? “Many people” where, in what context? On TV? In real life?
  2. Can you give some examples of this, used in a word? Is it always a beginning “s”, or is it in the middle of a word, like “disorder” or “vessel”?

AFAIK this is not being “taught” anywhere. Bonzo had a lisp in 1st grade, which would be 8 years ago, and his speech teacher taught him to hiss an “s” like a snake, not like an Italian band leader–“Sforzando! Sforzando!”

3

I’m hoping that someone with a better grasp of phonetics than I have will be along to give a better answer shortly.

A sound made with the tongue near or touching the teeth is called a dental. The Spanish t is usually dental, I believe. My linguistics textbook says “Some English speakers produce s and z as dentals.”

A sound made with the tongue between the teeth is called an interdental. English voiced and unvoiced th (as in “this” and “thigh”) are interdentals.

4

I’ve noticed this with a few actors on TV and in movies but can only think of one example off-hand. This came to light recently on Law & Order repeats on A&E in the episode that was based on the Homolka/Bernardo murders, where the woman was accused of taking part in the sex assaults/murders but was given a reduced sentence to testify against her boyfriend/husband.

I think Elizabeth Shue does this as well.

I suppose I see it most often when saying ‘Yes’. Although once I notice a person doing this, I can recognize it in other parts of speech.

I should clarify (should have been clearer). The ‘sf’ sound is not a harsh distinct attempt to create the ‘f’ but merely a soft byproduct of using the lips to create the ‘s’ sound. I suppose it is like the ‘Sf’ in ‘Sforzando’ if you weren’t to blow out air as part of the ‘for’, but to prepare your mouth for the ‘for’.

I can’t think of another way to describe the sound, as the ‘th’ and ‘sh’ sounds are so recognizable, but the sound that I am thinking of is subtle…perhaps too subtle. As I type this, I wonder if what I am noticing is the movement of the mouth rather than the sound being made.

<shrug…wanders off muttering to self…MPSIMS disguised as GQ?..maybe, but it’s buggin’ me…>

5

“S” is normally an alveolar fricative - that is, it’s produced by placing the tongue (more specifically, blade of the tongue) close to the alveolar ridge, that lump just behind your teeth - so close that turbulence is produced in the airstream, giving that characteristic fricative sound.

You can produce a similar sound by other means, and some people have to, because not everyone has an alveolar ridge - sometimes the roof of the mouth just slopes back gracefully into the hard palate. I suspect the actor Sean Connery is one of these people - they have the “slurred” sound described in the OP. You can also produce a dental “S” (tip of the tongue up close to the back of the teeth, not between them as in “th”) or a retroflex “S” (tip of the tongue curled back up against the hard palate). All of these will be heard by a native English speaker as a "sort of " S.

The lips aren’t involved in the production of “S”, or any sound back of the teeth. You can produce a bilabial fricative by putting your lips close together and blowing, but, English phonology being what it is, the sound you produce that way sounds (to an English native speaker) more like an “f” than an “s” (“f” being a labiodental fricative, produced by the lip and the teeth. I know a song about labiodental fricatives, and will sing it on request).

However, because labial and labiodental fricatives are produced with the lips, you can do other things with your tongue at the same time. (This is what I love about phonetics, it’s perfectly respectable, but it sounds so dirty. As with the classic description of the bilabial stops [p and b]: “The lips meet, and for a moment there is silence…”).

So… what I think is happening is that the actors you’ve mentioned are making a combined bilabial/alveolar fricative; you’re seeing the shape of the mouth for the bilabial bit, but you can’t see what Elizabeth Shue is doing with her tongue. Because English by and large doesn’t use bilabial fricatives, you mostly ignore that component of the sound and hear the result as a slightly funny-sounding S.

At least, that’s my best guess. I haven’t seen the Law & Order show, and the last time I saw Elizabeth Shue, I wasn’t looking at her mouth. Sorry.

6

Intriguing theory. If this is true it would mean that Ms. Shue and / or Mr. Connery have a slightly different shaped mouth. We could easily test this theory by french kissing one of them and searching for the alveolar ridge with one’s tongue. I volunteer to carry out this important scientific experiment with Ms. Shue. If we can get another Doper to volunteer with Mr. Connery we will have two data points. Ah, the things I am willing to subject myself to in the name of scientific research!

7

I have nothing worthwhile to add, except that it is curiously appropriate that ShibbOleth has contributed to this thread…

8

I’ve had a lisp my whole life, and even four or five years of speech therapy hasn’t helped me to say my s’s correctly. I can’t seem to make the proper sound when I do it the way you’re supposed to. I just sat here saying “She sells seashells by the seashore” to find out how I do it - and I’m apparently turning it into an “interdental.” Sounds ok most of the time but once in a while I sound like Sir Hiss from the Disney version of Robin Hood. Even more rarely I sound like Gopher from Winnie the Pooh. I can’t figure out how to do it properly.

I’m sorry, that was no help to the OP. But it’s an observation on different (though wrong, apparently) ways to make an S sound.

9

Actually, on a careful re-reading and another repetition of “She sells seashells,” I’ve figured out that what I’m doing is what Steve Wright described:

I still don’t know why I can’t do it properly.

10

The sounds may also be influenced by how rounded the lips are. I think that an alveolar fricative pronounced with rounded lips might be close to what the OP describes.

11

all posts in this thread have been written to the sound of 'ssssss,shhhh,thhhh,sssss,sssss,ffffff,…'

Steve Wright: You have thouroughly understood my descriptions and provided an exceptionally detailed explanation of the process that I am (apparently) sensitive to noticing. (why did I think of Sideshow Bob singing the HMS Pinafore when you made the offer to sing?)

Ultrafilter: It may indeed, but the instances I have in mind deliberately (or habitually) draw the bottom lip towards the interdental area to create the ‘s’.

racinchikki: Just curious, are your teeth together in the front when making an ‘s’? I’ve noticed (while typing) that the sound changes as I open and close my teeth without moving my tongue, and when moving my tongue back while keeping my teeth closed. And how do you say your handle ;)?

Given this information, my question becomes: How common is a (mono/lower)labial/aveolar fricative used in peoples normal way of speaking? (or am I just being anal?)

12

cantara, no, my teeth aren’t together. I can’t explain it. I didn’t even know WHAT I was doing until I read this thread… hey, it’s not horribly noticeable most of the time. I just avoid saying sentences with lots of esses.

13

Guess that’s not the right explanation, then.