Sibilant voicing in American English

[Will Ryan]

I am inclined to think that for many such words, in both British and US 
varieties of English, these sounds can be allophones with several 
intermediate stages of voicing, some dialectal some not. Wesleyan and 
Wezleyan can both be acceptable in educated British speech, but perzist 
and zip I haven't heard, although in Devon you can sip (zip?) zoider 
(cider). My wife, who comes from Cheshire, normally betrays her northern 
origins only by using 'uz' for 'us'. To my British ear some Americans 
pronounce international with sh tending more to voiced than unvoiced. 
There seems to be no particular pattern in all this - some words are 
always voiced, others never, many can be either or somewhere in between. 
Analogy may play a part (nuclear fission/fusion).
I would be interested to know if Paul reaches any conclusions about this 
evidently live process.
Will Ryan

Cathy Popkin wrote:
> Oh, dear.
> I wish you hadn't started me thinking about this, because now I can't stop.
> 
> I've heard 'perzist' for persist.
> Also, I went to Wesleyan University, but it turns out I'm an alumna of 
> Wezleyan.
> Oh--and some people I know in Philadelphia say 'zip' for sip.
> 
> And now I'd better dezist.
> CP
> 
> --On Wednesday, December 03, 2008 12:17 AM -0500 "Paul B. Gallagher" 
> <paulbg at PBG-TRANSLATIONS.COM> wrote:
> 
>> Dear friends,
>>
>> I've been putting together a collection of words where the sibilants /s/
>> and /ʃ/ ("sh") have recently become voiced in American English.
>>
>> Here are a few examples (sorry if they make you wince):
>>     cazhmere (wool)
>>     (nuclear) fision
>>
>> Obviously, "possess" (cf. French posseder) has had a /z/ for a long time,
>> but I don't know how long; I'm interested in 20th-century or later 
>> shifts.
>>
>> Isolated morphemes seem to be more susceptible; paradigms like
>> fishes/fished/fishing are apparently immune.
>>
>> Can anyone add to my collection?
>>
>> Private replies welcome, all replies accepted.
>>
>> -- 
>> War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
>> -- 
>> Paul B. Gallagher
>> pbg translations, inc.
>> "Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
>> http://pbg-translations.com
>>
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