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Comment by justinator | Hacker News Reader

Also interesting that the noun "house" is pronounced differently than the verb "to house".

As a non-native speaker: how is it pronounced differently?

The 's' is voiced in the verb and voiceless in the noun, at least in my midland accent, which is probably closer to American TV's accents. By 'voiced', I mean your vocal chords vibrate and make a sound for it. But the lip/teeth/tongue are the same.* There are several noun/verb words where the pronunciation changes and lots where the stress changes. Another pronunciation change example that I can think of right now is 'close': The noun and the verb do the same thing with final sound.

The voiced 's' is a 'z' sound. And English sadly doesn't use a different letter here.

*In simple terms. I think these form an identical mouth shape, but there's probably a dialect where it doesn't. And some bizarre cases where it doesn't. Because English. And judging from another comment from someone from Michigan, they say both the same?? Also 'housing' for me uses a voiced s, but I think I've heard 'housing' both ways.

You pronounce house like “mouse”, but “to house” is pronounced like “hows”, as in “how’s it going?”.

To me, every instance of "house" in the above sentence sound the exact same and perfect ryhme with mouse. Neiher "house" or "to house" sounds like "hows".

I'm in the Southeastern Michigan area if that explains anything.

edit: Using barrkel's comparison in a sibling thread - "house" and "to house" are both howce and "hows" is "howz".

edit2: Further thinking leads me to conclude I have heard others use "howz" for "to house" around me and if I were speaking quickly that may be how I would say it. Just reading those sentences to myself internally at my own speed uses the howce.

How do you say "we need to house new immigrants"?

How do you pronounce "department of housing and urban development"?

"Housing" esposes more of the howz sound. The first is just howce.

Thinking about this more... I just realized something. I struggled with a lisp and speech therapy in grade school. I distinctly remember a lesson where I was being instructed on how certain words ending in "s" actually sound like "z" like "apples" and I was pronouncing it without the z.

I am thinking this may just be related to that.

I was just trying to illustrate it better. I think the majority will say "howz new immigrants."

There are a few weird "same-spelling" words. You can refuse to throw refuse in the trash can. You can estimate how many estimates you might get. But I suspect that you're not a suspect in this case. But, if you get close, I'll close this thread.

A large number of those are called heteronyms which include a noun and a verb, the noun getting the stress on the first syllable while the verb receives the stress on the second. But yes I agree.

Didn't the muppets do a skit about s? ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I9652HzGWE

Or maybe it was the Electric Company's...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMuI6WI6MJU

Nothing beats Tom Lehrer's song about Silent E:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91BQqdNOUxs

This thread is also getting into such detail that people's regional accents will start to come into play as to how they pronounce things. "Pin" vs "pen," etc.

That's why I include my region whenever speaking about linguistics!

The department of housing and urban development needs to make new houses to house new immigrants.

The department of <howzing> and urban development needs to make new <howsses> to <howz> new immigrants.

I'm not sure that's right, if the "z"-pronounciation is for verbs. I would think the Department of Housing is talking about "housing" as a noun, rather than "housing" in a verby-way. Like the "department of transportation". You can transport something, but you don't transportation something. Or "Department of Education" isn't educationing people, it's educating people.

Bastard language this is.

> I'm not sure that's right, if the "z"-pronounciation is for verbs.

It is right. The rule you are stating is an overgeneralization; it is correct for specifically distinguishing the verb forms “house” and “houses” from the singular and plural noun forms “house” and “houses”, but not really otherwise (maybe by derivation, in that “housing” is “that which houses”, but...)

We need to mouse new immigrants

Department of mousing and urban development

You're going to hate this, but the noun and verb form of mouse are pronounced the same,

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/eng...

Howz and howzing.

And Houston is only pronounced like house if you're in NY

Or in Scotland, and the last syllable is still pronounced differently (ton instead of tun).

And not Who-ston? -

or is it, Hue-ston?

Hue's ton. It's a unit of weight.

House-ton, we have a problem. --Jim Lovell

House-ton, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. --Neil Armstrong

I feel like I'm in some alternate universe ala PK Dick where things are the same with slight twists. This one is where odd pronunciations are the norm. Like going to the Rodeo to see the cattle.

To house is pronounced "to howz", house is pronounced "howce".

Similar to the change in stress for "perfect" and "to perfect".

I never noticed that, but you're right.

How much else is there I never noticed???

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