"Gossip and the news are the same, anymore."

[Wilson Gray]

Years ago - 20-plus? - Labov - or someone else - wrote in the NYT - or
somewhere else - that /s/, when followed by an obstruent, was changing
into [S]. FWIW, I hear this shift all the time among the self-selected
polloi who appear on "Maury," "Springer," et al. E.g. fans of
"American Pie" recall with fondness the character, Stifler's Mom,
which they pronounce as "_Schtifler's_ Mom."

[Strange! My spellchecker accepts _Stifler_, but not _Schtifler_. IME,
both names are equally improbable. Is it the case that _Stifler_ is
quite common and I, by chance, am unaware of that? Or was the movie so
popular that programmers now code "Stifler" into their spellcheckers?]

BTW, there's no connection between the subject line, which I merely
happened to hear some random speaker say, and this post.
--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

Once we recognize that we do not err out of laziness, stupidity,
or evil intent, we can uncumber ourselves of the impossible burden of
trying to be permanently right. We can take seriously the proposition
that we could be in error, without necessarily deeming ourselves
idiotic or unworthy.
–Kathryn Schulz

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