The standard spelling of the titular word, meaning a stage routine, gimmick, or joke, is shtick. The variant schtick is nonstandard and likely stems from the assumption that the word requires the German spelling of the voiceless postalveolar fricative. While partially correct, this assumption ignores that German has differing pronunciation rules from English. Shtick comes to English from the Yiddish shtick, which itself comes from the German stücke, which uses the common German st digraph to indicate what requires, in English, an sht spelling.