Recent application of sulfonium salts in intramolecular ylide reactions3 and as electrophiles with @-dicarbonyls4 focused our attention on the need for methods to convert alkyl aryl sulfides into alkyl diary1 sulfonium salts (1 to 2).5 In this note, we describe a solution to this problem RSAr - RS+(Ar)Ar'X- 1 2 ... (Table I) and demonstrate that these salts can be used in ylide and in alkylation reactions. The acid-catalyzed addition of thioethers to benzo- quinone has been used by ...