S (letter)

S is the 19th letter of the English alphabet. Its name is pronounced ess.

Use in English

s is a hissing sound, unvoiced, like c in nîce, or voiced, a buzzing sound, like z in zoô. (The accents show stress and pronunciation: see English phonemes.)

The unvoiced, hissing s

sõap, stew, schême, sky, spêed, Srì Lánka (or *Shr-), mòuse, scêne, péts, píps, pāst time = pāssed gone by, míss failure = Míss girl.

The unvoiced, hissing sound is the sound of ss: glāss, grāss, pāss, híss, lóss, ósscilate, véssel, assûme and tréspass (where the single s is also a hiss, giving rise to the error *tresspass), though not assůre, which in BrE sounds like ashŏre and in AmE *ashûre.

In Missoûr the sound is, however, a buzz, like z, while in crêase, dêcrêase and íncrêase (nouns), decrêase, incrêase (verbs), bâsic (as from bâse) and NÁSA (surprisingly between two vowels) it is a hiss.

The hissing sound is also that of st before -en and -le (the final vowel is always schwa): lísten (*líssən), fāsten (*fāssən), whístle (*whíssle), cāstle, grístle, hústle, bústle, rústle and, with no e, mústn’t (*mússənt).

Unvoiced final s after voiceless consonants:

1. Plurals: sócks, rîghts, fláps, gáps, décks, nécks, élephants, díscs.

2. Present simple tense, third person singular: hê/shê/ít, géts, êats, séts, quácks, bàrks, pícks, gríps, āsks.

3. Possessives, with apostrophe: Pête’s dóg, thê élephant’s trúnk, Jáck’s cát’s tâil (compare íts, which is a possessive without an apostrophe: the apostrophe is used for ít’s which means ít ís: ít’s lícking íts påw).

4. Looking exactly the same as number 3, contracted ís and hás: ít’s it is, ít’s nót trûe, Níck’s hêre, Rûth’s thére, Pête’s íll, thát boòk’s stûpid, her cát’s cléver.

This sound also appears with a redundant c: scêne, ósscilate, acquiésce, éffervésce, and scéptre (AmE -er).

It’s the hissing s which begins consonant clusters: scãre, askeŵ, scrêam, skì, slîght, småll, snâil, spŷ, splásh, sprêe, sqùash, Srì Lánka, stône, stróng, swéãr, skíll and asbéstos (although this can also be pronounced -zb-).

The voiced, buzzing s

is pronounced like z in zoô. It is not found at the beginning of words: z is used instead. Voiced s is found between vowels and in front of voiced consonants: lâser, resûme, mésmerise, noise, resîgn, phrâses, Présley, Bósnia, Dísney Íslām, although there is a trend to devoice the s in the last word. But in these circumstances s can also be unvoiced as in: oâsis, crîsis, aslêep, disdâin, dismántle.

Voiced final s after voiced consonants and vowels:

1. plurals: bâbies, bônes, dâys, vòwels, potâtoes

2. present simple third person singular: hê/shê/ít, húgs, gôes, cãres, hás, ís, and in the past ẁas

3. possessives: Jâne’s hòuse, Mãry’s sálary, the dóg’s bône, mŷ càr’s frònt sêat, hís, hers, òurs, théirs

4. contracted ís and hás: Pêter’s going, Hárry’s góne, Shêila’s lâte, Jâne’s nót còming, Fréd’s at hôme, hê’s gót flû, nô-òne’s hêre

5. ás

clôse near has unvoiced s (*clôce) and clôse shut has voiced s (= clôze test).

A similar case is ûsed (either *yoôzd, straightforward past or past participle of ûse, or *yoôst plus to-infinitive denoting habit), which can be momentarily ambiguous. In 'the compûter ûsed to méss úp the blóg' one might think at first that the computer *yoôst, with a hissing ss, habitually to mess up a blog, until one gets to 'hád an ínternet addréss', which shows the meaning to be ‘the computer which was used to mess up the blog’ with a buzzing s, or z sound, *yoôzd.

The sh sound

sh is the unvoiced version of zh: ssh! shoôt, cásh, shrîne, shâke, lêash, pósh, áshen.

Sometimes, from German, Yiddish and Hebrew, this sound is spelt sch: schwà, schnítzel, Schùltz. (But in escheŵ the s is pronounced separately fronm the ch: the second syllable is identical to the word cheŵ.)

The same sound spelt s before u: BrE sůre, assůredly, AmE sûre, assûredly; préssure and in Irish Seån - also spelt Shåun or Shåwn.

si can be pronounced zh before a vowel: fûsion, derísion, televísion, Âsia (*Âzhə or *Âshə) as is su in pléasure, tréasure (*plézhə, *trézhə) BrE léisure AmE lêisure. But not in every case: while AmE has *Toô-nìzhə for Tunisia, BrE says *Cheŵ-nízìə.

Also from Welsh and Irish: Siàn, Siobhăn *Shivăwn, and Se from Irish: Seăn (= Shăwn, Shăun).

Sy, etc.

Sy- is always sý- with the exceptions of Sŷracûse and sŷphon: sýrup, sýstem, sýnagogue, sýndicate, sýnthesis, sýntax, sýmptom, sýmbol sign = cýmbal drum

s is silent in chássis (*shássy), prècis (*prâysêe), Àrkansås, Íllinois, îsland (*îlənd), îsle island = aîsle seats (*île), rendezvous (*róndâyvoô).

Voiced s at the end of a word with silent e: pôse, plêase, erâse, phâse, críticise.

but z is also often found in this position: crâze, hâze, frêeze, frôze.

Most words ending in -îse can also be spelt -îze: críticise or críticize (this is more common in AmE); but since -îze is never found in advîse, ádvertise, comprîse, cómpromise, despîse, éxercise, surmîse, or surprîse (*surprîze appears as late as Jane Austen, but no later) it seems wiser and easier to spell them all -îse. Also, prómíse, prémíse and práctíse (which can be práctice, and is always in AmE) are never -îze because they are all pronounced -íss.

See also

• Spelling pronunciation
• Letter (alphabet)
• Alphabet
• Writing system
• Orthography
• Written language
• Writing