In case anyone doesn’t know, /ʃ/ is the consonant at the beginning and end of shush, and in the middle of machine. That sound is not a combination of /s/ and /h/, but a different consonant entirely.
To be clear, I am NOT looking for words in which /ʃ/ is spelled in a way other than “sh.” Chandelier, mission, action and the aforementioned machine are useless for this purpose. I’m only looking for words in which sh represents a different sound.
If robert_columbia’s example is valid, Bellshill (it’s a town’s name, so I don’t know whether you’ll count it as a proper name or not). You can tell people are new to the area because they pronounce it as bell-shill instead of bell’s-hill.
It’s not what I would think of as a “true” digraph, but it is one of the definitions:
1: a group of two successive letters whose phonetic value is a single sound (as ea in bread or ng in sing) or whose value is not the sum of a value borne by each in other occurrences (as ch in chin where the value is \ + \sh)
**2: a group of two successive letters **
3: ligature 4
— di·graph·ic \dī-ˈgra-fik\ adjective
— di·graph·i·cal·ly -fi-k(ə-)lē\ adverb
Earl and everybody, I should have been more specific in my OP. I’m only looking for words in which the “sh” has a single phonetic value, as in shine or rush, not words in which they appear adjacent to one another but each has a separate value, as in the above mentioned hogshead*, mishandle*, **and asshole. Sorry for any confusion. To put it a different way, consider that the default pronounciation of “ch” is /tʃ/, the sound at the beginning and end of church, which is not a combination of either /s/ & /h/ or /k/ & /h/; and yet in many common English words, “ch” represents /k/ (as in chorus) or /ʃ/ (as in machine).
Let me again rephrase the question. Can anyone think of any English words (excepting proper names) in which “sh” represents /tʃ/ (as in church), /s/ (as in sass), /z/ (as in zoos*) *or /ʒ/ (the consonant in the middle of measure and Asia, or at the end of massage)?
Also, if anybody can think of instances of “sh” representing /tʃ/, please don’t bother with any words in which the digraph is immediately preceded by “t.” A close reading of the above paragraph may reveal why.
Rhymers thirst for all knowledge. You should know that. Sometimes I think I wrote the RhymerFaq for nothing.
My curiosity is idle. It just seemed odd that the related “ch” can represent either two or three different phonemes (/k/ is iffy, as one might say that it’s the “c” that represents the /k/, and the “h” is simply silent), while “sh” would have but a single function. Of course it’s not unique that way; I cannot think of any instances of “ph” representing anything other than /f/ or /p/+/h/.
Here’s a quick search of the CMU pronunciation dictionary for all words spelled with a <sh>, excluding those with a <tsh>, which do not include the phonemic sequence /ʃ/ or /ʃh/:
$ fgrep SH cmudict.0.7a |fgrep -v ' SH'|fgrep -v 'S HH' | fgrep -v 'TSH'
ALLSHOUSE AO1 L Z HH AW2 S
CASHMERE K AE1 ZH M IH0 R
CASHMERES K AE1 ZH M IH0 R Z
CHISHOLM CH IH1 Z AH0 M
CLOTHESHORSE K L OW1 Z HH AO2 R S
DISHON D IH1 S AH0 N
DISHONEST D IH0 S AA1 N AH0 S T
DISHONESTLY D IH0 S AO1 N AH0 S T L IY0
DISHONESTY D IH0 S AA1 N AH0 S T IY0
DISHONG D IH1 S AO0 NG
DISHONOR D IH0 S AA1 N ER0
DISHONORABLE D IH0 S AA1 N ER0 AH0 B AH0 L
DISHONORED D IH0 S AA1 N ER0 D
FRASHIER F R EY1 ZH Y ER0
FRESHOUR F R EH1 S AW0 R
GAYSHILL G EY2 Z HH IH1 L
HOLLINGSHEAD HH AA1 L IH0 NG Z HH EH2 D
HOLLINSHEAD(1) HH AA1 L IH0 N Z HH EH2 D
HUISHMAN HH UW1 S M AH0 N
KHRUSHCHEV K R UW1 S CH EH2 V
KHRUSHCHEV(1) K R UW1 S CH AO2 F
KHRUSHCHEV'S K R UW1 S CH EH2 V Z
KHRUSHCHEV'S(1) K R UW1 S CH AO2 F S
KLIXSHAVICH K L IH0 K S AE1 V IH0 CH
MOSHER M OW1 ZH ER0
MOTHERSHEAD M AH1 DH ER0 Z HH EH2 D
NEWSHOUR N UW1 Z AW2 R
RUCKELSHAUS R AH1 K AH0 L Z HH AW2 S
WELSH W EH1 L CH
WERDESHEIM W ER1 D Z HH AY2 M
So it looks like, among the relatively common English words with aren’t proper names, your answer is as follows: cashmere, cashmeres, dishonest, dishonestly, dishonesty, dishonor, dishonorable, dishonored, newshour, and welsh.
I think cashmere (with a French-ish zh) might be what you are looking for, but doesn’t this come from a proper noun, the region of Kashmir? So, is it OK if the word isn’t a proper noun, but comes from one?
I’m not counting the /s/+/h/ combos, but cashmere and welsh are exactly what I had in mind. I can’t recall hearing the latter pronounced with a /tʃ/ and the end, but both the Oxford English Dictionary & Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary have that as an acceptable alternate.
ETA: robert, the OED & MW both say that cashmere comes from the region. But that doesn’t matter to me, because cashmere is used as a common noun. Anyway, I asked to disregard proper names because I am sure that someone somewhere has coined a name for her or his child in which “sh” is pronounced in some 'flicted way. I blame the Welsh.
Does /k/ represent the sound generally produced by K in English? Because that’s not quite the same sound as in, say, “loch”. So I’d say that “ch” can represent at least three or four different phonemes.
“Shibboleth” is sometimes pronounced with an initial “s” sound instead of a “sh”. You can often tell where people are from by which pronunciation they use.