The over enunciation of S

[Lex345]

Am I the only one who gets irrationally, internally furious at this, usually during news reports? It makes me cringe and I am willing them to shut up or to not use words with 'S' in them! In longer reports, I have to change the channel, it honestly riles me that much 😳

Not speech affectations, I mean a very obvious effort to over pronounce S. Also I have never noticed it "in real life"/face to face-only ever on TV.

AIBU to wonder why some people do it? It sounds awful!

There's a guy on one of the shopping channels who does this...I can't watch him for long , agree it's irrationally irritating!

Glad its not just me!

Just watched a Netflix documentary about a cult leader and he did this in a very extreme way! Over pronounced the letter S so much, it was like listening Kaa from Jungle Book every time he spoke

I looked it up though and apparently there is a word for it- sibilance. Agree that it’s massively irritating!

Ooh example? I've not noticed this and am usually very easily irrittated 😁

Yes! The word 'issue' is particularly irritating.

Oh yes I know wbat you mean if its words like issue. My nan used to do that. Tissue too...

In an episode of Dragons Ruffnutt and Tuff nut ban the letter S. it's quite amusing. I can't remember why, or even if there is a why, but they do. We are big Dragons fans here and ds would watch 24/7 if he could.

Boris saying vaccines is irritating as hell. Issues with issues seems very common these days.

Can you give an example? I can't understand what you mean?
Wrt "issue", do posters mean they don't like the "s" variant and prefer the "sh" one?

I've never noticed! Then again, I only watch the Great British Bake Off and Bluey these days.

Oh my god it drives me mad when people say isssss-ewe and now ishew. I’m sure it’s a dialect thing but I cannot stand it!

*not ishew

you mean like whistle when saying the letter?
there is a presenter at radio 4 who does that... probably you hear it more duecto the kind of microphone they use.

It really grates on me, especially when the pull on the s makes that snaky whistle sound.

@WhatTheFlap

Oh my god it drives me mad when people say isssss-ewe and now ishew. I’m sure it’s a dialect thing but I cannot stand it!

No. It's one of two standard variations.

Its like a hissing noise I dont know how else to describe it, the odd word isnt too bad but every word

Im sure my accent is massively irritating to them though "Why doesnt she pronounce her S properly" 😂

Can anyone name someone who does this?

There is a news presenter on Sky News that does it, I am not sure of her name though

Could they have had a lisp and this is an after affect of speech therapy?

I've not noticed the S thing but I don't like people pronouncing appreciate as a-pree-see-ate

Or posh people pronouncing room as rum

@MichelleScarn I don't think so as it is not all the time

Makes my skin crawl.

I have a relative who pronounces the word homosexual as "hommer-SEK-sseuille". Infuriating.

Neither iss-you nor appree-siate are wrong. I haven't noticed this as a particular problem.

@EishetChayil

Makes my skin crawl.

I have a relative who pronounces the word homosexual as "hommer-SEK-sseuille". Infuriating.

Infuriating, perhaps. But - if I've understood the way you've written it - also perfectly correct. I mean, you could get picky about the 'mer', but that's to do with regional variations in the pronunciation of unstressed vowels.

dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/homosexual

How would you prefer it to be said?

I recently heard a guy on Newsnight repeatedly use ash-oom for assume and it drove me from the room. 🤷
So I can't complain about issue and tissue however they are said!

On a slight tangent I cannot abide /d/ being pronounced as /j/ in words such as dew or duke. The man's a Duke, not a Juke - that's a car!