Why does ssh mean quiet

The origin of all these words however, was the Middle English word huisst pronounced "wheesht" , which originated in round about —A. Huisst as expected, meant "silence, peace". It's even present in languages that don't use the sound. An answer for which I do not have a source, but is worth consideration, is that the sound "shhh" is soothing to babies, perhaps because it imitates the sounds in the womb.

If you want to silence somebody by means of sound, you usually want to make a sound that is audible to a close addressee but not to somebody further away whom you do not want to hear you. The latter excludes low-frequency vowels and voiced consonants as they contain low-frequency sounds which are carried well over distance and barriers there is a reason why you devoice when whispering.

It also excludes high-frequency vowels and plosives stop consonants as they stand out against ambient sounds at least, if you want them to be audible by the addressee. Of these, hhh is confusable with abnormal breathing and in my personal opinion fff, sss and thh stand out more against ambient sound than shh, which is acustically similar to white noise. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top.

Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. What is the origin of "shh"? Ask Question. Asked 10 years, 6 months ago. Active 6 years, 1 month ago. Viewed 27k times. The word "sh" or "shh" is an exclamation for silence: Shh! Lost Password. Back to login.

Interjections of Attention English Grammar. Definition with Examples Interjections of attention are used to draw the attention of someone. Previous Story Interjections of Approval. Next Story Interjections of Surprise. Related articles Adjective of Number English Grammar. Interjections of Surprise English Grammar. Declarative Sentence English Grammar.

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