News and Houses

News and Houses News and Houses News and Houses By Maeve Maddox Lately I’ve noticed that several announcers on NPR (National Public Radio)both national and local announcershave taken to pronouncing the word news as [noos]. U.S. and British speakers usually differ in the way they pronounce the vowel in news. Most U.S. speakers say [nooz]. British pronunciation is [nyooz]. The pronunciation [noos] is a new one on me. Long before I heard [noos], I began to notice a shift in the way some U.S. speakers pronounce the words house and houses, pronouncing the [z] of the plural as [s]. I first noticed it in the speech of Chicago speakers, but now I hear it in the national media. House is pronounced differently according to whether it is a noun or a verb. â€Å"Let’s paint the house pink.† (noun) Used as a noun, house is pronounced [hous]. The plural of house is houses [hou-ziz]. â€Å"Relief services must house all the homeless storm survivors.† (verb) As a verb, house is pronounced [houz]. House has an -ing form that can be used as either a noun or a verb: â€Å"Local hotels are providing temporary housing for the survivors.† (verbal noun) â€Å"FEMA is housing the survivors in mobile homes.† (present participle) The pronunciation of housing is [hou-zing] Several rules govern the pronunciation of the letter s in English. I’ll mention only the ones that apply to news and houses. houses If the last consonant sound of the word is a sibilant sound like [s] or [z]), the final sound is pronounced like an extra syllable: [houz-iz] news If the last letter of the word ends in a vowel sound (e.g. bees, flies), the s is pronounced [z]. Don’t let the consonant letter w in news fool you. English has many more vowel sounds than it has vowel letters. The w in news belongs to the vowel digraph ew, the vowel sound heard in news. Such handy rules for the pronunciation of s at the end of words do not exist for s in a medial position. Those you must learn on a word-by-word basis. When in doubt, consult a dictionary. Interesting side note: One of the announcers on my local NPR station pronounces noon as [njun] instead of [noon]. She says that a program is on â€Å"from 11 a.m. to [njun].† I’m waiting for another announcer to do it. I think this kind of thing may be catching. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Spelling category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Useful Stock Phrases for Your Business Emails20 Pairs of One-Word and Two-Word FormsDouble Possessive