Pronouncing "Massachusetts"

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

It is not totally simple metathesis-like assimilation, but it is not all that 
unlikely, it seems to me (the /S/ merely moves forward and absorbs the /s/):

mæsatSuwsIts > mæs at tuwSIts

/t/, /s/, and /S/ are all voiceless nonperipheral consonants, and /tS/ and 
/s/ together are continuants, so a mishearing is not all that unlikely.

A quite common "mis"pronunciation (in which the "absorption" is to the /s/ 
rather than the /S/) is:

mæs at tuwsIts

-- so the pronunciation that retains the /S/ rather than the /s/ seems to be 
just as likely.


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