Re: Do I say [s] correctly?

In the last episode, (On Wednesday 11 July 2007 07:59:45), John Crowe wrote:
> What has frustrated me recently is that the description of a fairly common
> sound, [s] is not the way I say it. I must admit, many aspects of phonetics
> confuse me.
>
> My understanding of the normal description:
> The tip or blade of the tongue is supposed to be the articulator, which is
> placed up against the alveolar ridge (which from what I read is right
> behind the upper teeth) but not completely stopping airflow, creating
> high-frequency turbulence. Air then passes over the sharp edges of teeth.
>
> How I say [s]:
> First of all, the tip of my tongue is no where near the alveolar ridge
> (that's how it feels, at least), but rather the spot right behind the
> _lower_ teeth. (But it is not here where the friction occurs.) Air comes
> out through the small gap between the upper and lower teeth, producing the
> sound. It seems to me that the articulator is the lower teeth, and the
> place of articulation is the upper teeth.
>
> No one ever told me that I have a speech problem, and the way I say it
> sounds normal to me. Do I misunderstand the descriptions or do I say [s]
> incorrectly?
That sounds like my "s" too. I don't think this counts as a speech impediment,
as Alex Fink says. Keep in mind that regional dialects may also play a role
(there's a so-called Northumbrian burr, for example, lamentably dying out,
which sounds like a "less violent" "Parisian r".) And everyone has their own
idiolect.

There's only two speech impediments in English that I know of: "s" pronounced
as "th" (which can also affect "sh" and "ch") and "r" pronounced somewhat
as "w". I don't think I have either of those (in fact I have been vigorously
told that I DON'T have the latter!) and yet I got a job application through
the post the other day, which I had requested on the talking bone, addressed
to "Geoff Warren" (apparently G and J on the one hand, A and E on the other
are not distinguishable enough in the Geordie dialect for many people to
distinguish them. And many people don't seem to be able to grasp the fact
that the "o" of "Rollin" is pronounced as the "a" of "Warren", not as
in "Rock and Roll".

HTH

Jeff
--
"Please understand that there are small
European principalities devoted to debating
Tcl vs. Perl as a tourist attraction."

                            -- Cameron Laird