Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 October 14

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October 14

"sh" digraph limited

When we anglophones learn about sounds as preschoolers, we learn that the sound at the beginning of the word short is the sh sound. However, this digraph's use is limited to the beginning or ending of a root word or the -ship suffix. Most uses of this sound that are not in the above categories are spelled ci, si, or ti. Why is the sh digraph so limited?? Georgia guy (talk) 16:15, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

I heard that the Marshal and the Bishop were seated on a cushion and eating cashews and mushrooms together. Maybe that's not kosher, or it's out of fashion. I should sashay out of here before the usher escorts me from the room. Maybe your presumption on the lack of medial -sh- diagraphs in common English words is mistaken. --Jayron32 16:48, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Note the word "most" at the beginning of one of the sentences in my post. Georgia guy (talk) 16:59, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

You forgot about words like "issue" and "mission", which are mostly pronounced "ish-you" and "mish-un". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:20, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Note the word most at the beginning of one of the sentences in the OP. —Tamfang (talk) 00:40, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

A slippery term. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:43, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Those words spelled with ci, si, or ti often preserve the spelling in use when printing became established and slowed down organic orthographic change (link to disimbaguation page deliberate), even though pronunciations may have subsequently mutated. They are often Latin or descendent Romance-language words which did not seamlessly fit with English's underlying Germanic melange, but whose latinate spellings their learnéd introducers preferred. This is one reason for English's semi-chaotic spelling conventions. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.128.151 (talk) 17:46, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

The words spelled with ci + vowel letter, si + vowel letter, or ti + vowel letter generally were pronounced as IPA [sj] + vowel sound in French. If, when such words were borrowed into English, the vowel following this "sy" sound sequence was unstressed, then the sequence tended to coalesce into a single "sh" sound. These spellings were NOT deployed for the purpose of avoiding the letter sequence "sh" in medial position... AnonMoos (talk) 20:12, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

And "ocean"?--Verbarson (talk) 15:18, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Ocean used to be a word with three syllables: o-ce-an. In many European languages it still is, but in English, the middle syllable was reduced to a single consonant. So, it's similar to the si + vowel words. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:51, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Still preserved in words such as "oceanic", which is typically four syllables. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:43, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Historically, "oceanic" should be pronounced with an "s" consonant sound, since the word doesn't have a phonological palatalization environment, but now often or usually pronounced with an "sh" sound [ʃ] by analogy. AnonMoos (talk) 20:43, 19 October 2021 (UTC)