Stink Fish Pot, I agree with you 100%. I have the exact same question as you. Why do so many people lisp now? And how can anyone NOT notice SJP’s lisp/hiss? It drives me crazy. I read that some people cannot say S correctly because of their mouth anatomy. No problem there, they can’t do it,. The article said that many people lisp due to lazy speech patterns, and they can articulate the S sound just fine. They just don’t. Like SJP. Lisp or hiss, if you can make the correct sound, why not do it. Anyway, drives me nuts.
Okay, serious question: HOW do you produce an s sound without putting your tongue on/through your teeth? Because I’ve tried for half an hour and literally cannot produce an “s” sound without putting my tongue through my teeth. Sometimes my s’s get “lispy” I’ll admit, but they’re usually just sibilant.
It’s probably because of the fact that my teeth don’t overlap in the front due to orthodontic issues. Even when I have my teeth clenched like some of the tutorials recommend I can’t do it without putting my tongue between my teeth, there’s just nowhere else for it to go. (The gap also means I can’t do a smile with teeth :()
A proper “s” sound is produced by placing the front of the tongue along the roof of the mouth just behind the front teeth, probably by 1/8 inch or so, and dropping the back of the tongue. The “hissy” or “whistle” s sound is produced by placing the tongue even further back.
I was in a voice acting class some years ago, with a pro voice acting coach who works with many well-known actors whose names escape me because it was a decade ago. One of the students in the class had a distinctive lisp, and during our second session the coach addressed it for about 2 minutes. I wish I could remember the instructions she gave the student, because she simply taught her a different way to form her “s” sound. The coach said often if a lisp isn’t from a physical problem, it’s simply because either as a child the person didn’t watch closely to see how parents were forming the sound, so copied it incorrectly, or a parent was a lisper and so the child learned it that way. Apparently this student was one of those, because her lisp disappeared during the instructional and the coach said if she practiced every day it would become her new normal.
It was fascinating to watch, and the student was kind of amazed that the simple instruction was all she had to do to change it.
I think for me it’s physical. I’ve always had trouble with alveolar sounds, I can’t do the alveolar trill either, despite years of trying.
Of course punishing or mocking isn’t the way to go, but maybe he could benefit from speech therapy. I took it all throughout grade school, as part of the school’s resource program.
Anyway:
When I think of lisps, I think of the kid from “The Music Man”, especially in the song “The Wells Fargo Wagon”. That, to me, is a serious lisp. Granted it’s from a movie, but I haven’t really heard a lisp that pronounced in a real-life adult (kids, sure), aside from a girl I know who spent most of her formative years in Hungary. (And before I knew that about her, I thought she was just being cute.)
I’ve begun to notice it, too. I have a coworker who lisps (also known as a “lateralized /s/” or /sɬ/ in diacritic, I believe.)
I think it’s prevalence is due to the fact that it is not treated in schools. With such heavy caseloads as it is, SLPs can only focus on impediments, delays, or disabilities that significantly impact the quality of life or education of a student. This includes more severe articulation disorders, communication disorders, or any disorder of language (morphology, pragmatics, semantics, syntax, and phonology) that interferes with daily interactions and learning. Of all the observations I’ve done, I’ve never known a school SLP that had a child for lisping (it may be possible to see a child that has lisping in addition to other problems, but never only lisping.)
Most states mandate that in order to recieve help in schools the child must score at least 1 1/3- 1 1/2 below standard deviation on at least two standardized tests (or subtests.) If given an articulation test, lisping would only affect a few sounds- not enough to make the student score to the point of needing treatment. There is always speech therapy outside of schools, but it can be a hassle trying to find one in the area, scheduling, and fighting with insurance to try to get it covered (if possible.)
Really, I think it’s just a quality of life issue. The coworker I work with seems unaffected by it, and it seems like all the lispers listed here are doing pretty well despite the lisp. It’s when the speaker feels that the impediment is having a noticeable impact on their quality of life is when it should be addressed.
In thix theasons and theveral thinematic fimths of Thex and the Thity, I don’t think I’ve ever notithed that Thara Jethica Parker thpeaks with any dithernable thpeach impedementh.
Yoooour’re dethhhhhhspicable. 
Thombies! Thhhey’re everywhere!
I believe that Frank was born with a cleft palate, wasn’t he?
Chumlee from Pawn Stars also has a slight lisp.
Chumlee’s might also be part of his onscreen character. Honest to goodness, I don’t think anyone can be that stupid in real life and still be alive, let alone gainfully employed. Just watch, one of these days someone will discover that the whole darn thing is scripted.
No shit. I just said he had a lisp, not that his stupidity isn’t an act.
This. Listen to her saying “exercise trousers.” No lisp.
Ok, coming to this a few years late. Found this thread after Googling “Ellen Pompeo” and lisp. Thank you for confirming what I’ve been lamenting for years. Hollywood is running rampant with “little girl” voices as leading ladies.
Ellen Pompeo
Drew Barrymore
Kathryn Erbe
All of them have unbearable lisps. Since when is it no longer a speech impediment?
I’ve never noticed any of those other than Drew Barrymore lisp, but schools are cutting back on a lot of things, including speech therapy. Kids don’t go to therapy three times a week for 20 minutes for minor impediments anymore, because schools don’t have full-time speech/language pathologists. A kid has to be incomprehensible before he goes to “speech.” A lot of parents now get told if they want “cosmetic” correction for their children’s speech, they have to seek it privately.
Also, schools don’t teach diction anymore. It had just fallen off the curriculum when I was in second grade (1973), although I was in a private school then, so I still had it, but when I started 3rd grade at a public school, it was gone.
Actually (I’ll try to find a cite) there is a popular theory that it’s the New Zealand accent that is eventually going to spread across the Anglosphere. Whither thut’s a good thing or not, I wull leave to the reader…
Lisping taking over is a new one on me, though. I rarely hear it.
((I blame) ((the (increasing) use) of ((artificially intelligent) (computer (voice synthesis) programs))).)
The only thing this thread has taught me is that there are a lot of people in the world who don’t actually know what a lisp sounds like. SJP doesn’t have one.