# English: voiced pronunciation with -ss- spelling



## jkerchek

Has anyone noticed some words with ss have very irregular and strange reading
 such as dissect and dessert

 dis-sect should never read die-sect
 and
 des-sert should never read dizurt
 Does anyone know reasons?

There are more examples for the corrupted ss -> z
scissors, possess, dissolve
Is there any rule for the ss->z corruption?


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## origumi

http://jakubmarian.com/english-words-in-which-ss-is-pronounced-as-z/


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## CapnPrep

jkerchek said:


> Does anyone know reasons?


A lack of discipline, and perhaps some kind of mental deficiency?  Actually, if you consider illiteracy a mental deficiency, that is actually part of the answer. You say that "des-sert should never read dizurt" but this means nothing to people who don't read at all. And voicing of intervocalic [s] is a rather common phenomenon, although it is not a regular change in modern English.


jkerchek said:


> There are more examples for the corrupted ss -> z
> scissors, possess, dissolve


_Scissors_ actually goes the other way. The original pronunciation was [z] and it was originally spelled with one "s" (Anglo-Norman _ci*s*ours_, cf. modern French _ci*s*eau_). In this case, literacy got in the way and the spelling was "corrupted" by people who knew too much Latin for their own good.


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## jkerchek

CapnPrep said:


> _Scissors_ actually goes the other way. The original pronunciation was [z] and it was originally spelled with one "s" (Anglo-Norman _ci*s*ours_, cf. modern French _ci*s*eau_). In this case, literacy got in the way and the spelling was "corrupted" by people who knew too much Latin for their own good.


Very true
But I think there must be some reasons for other words


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## Sepia

jkerchek said:


> Has anyone noticed some words with ss have very irregular and strange reading
> such as dissect and dessert
> 
> dis-sect should never read die-sect
> and
> des-sert should never read dizurt
> Does anyone know reasons?
> 
> There are more examples for the corrupted ss -> z
> scissors, possess, dissolve
> Is there any rule for the ss->z corruption?




It is not really because of the double consonant. At least it is not the only reason. It is because it makes one of the "s" belong to the previous syllable.

Like in "sister" and "dial".

But the question "why" is really a tricky one. Because at some time in the evolution of the language enough people thought ist would be a good idea to write such a sound in exactly this way. 

The system works even in a number of romance languages too. But, hey, not in Spanish. For some reason they tend to avoid double consonants.


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## CapnPrep

Sepia said:


> The system works even in a number of romance languages too. But, hey, not in Spanish. For some reason they tend to avoid double consonants.


For some reason they tend to avoid the sound [z] altogether… Talk about corrupted pronunciation.  But at least they had the decency to update their spelling.


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## Cenzontle

> The system works even in a number of *R*omance languages too.


Sepia, are there Romance languages with inconsistencies or exceptions to VsV = [z], VssV = [s]?
Add to the list of English words in which -ss- = [z]:  the place name "Missouri".
The University of Missouri, especially in the context of sports, has the nickname "Mizzou".


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## berndf

Cenzontle said:


> Sepia, are there Romance languages with inconsistencies or exceptions to VsV = [z], VssV = [s]?


You find intervocalic <s> that is not voiced in some Italian words. Spanish doesn't have the [z] sound at all, so that doesn't count (as CapnPrep said above). I am not aware of a voiced <ss> in any. In languages that maintained <ss> not only orthographically but also phonetically, like Italian, that would be extremely unlikely as a long /s:/ prevents intervocalic voicing quite effectively. But it could theoretically happen in French as /s:/ doesn't exist any more (at least not phonemically distinct from /s/) but it doesn't and a can't tell why. In German you observe the same: /s:/ and /s/ are phonetically merged and are purely orthographic today but there is no voiced <ss>. There the reason is because the voicing of intervocalic /s/ happened earlier that the decay of /s:/, so this might be also the reason in French.

I presume that in English the process of voicing of intervocalic /s/ continued after the merger of /s:/ and /s/ had been completed and therefore also affected <ss> in some words which at that time was already purely orthographic.


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## jkerchek

How about dissect?
I haven't found a single exception for dis-s  reading dies. 
WHY WHY WHY?


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## berndf

jkerchek said:


> How about dissect?
> I haven't found a single exception for dis-s  reading dies.
> WHY WHY WHY?


You are trying to make sense of English pronunciation of Latin words? Doesn't you think that's asking a bit much.


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## Cenzontle

I sent a post that seems to have disappeared.  Maybe there's a rule against consecutive postings.
In that note, I suggested that the "die" pronunciation of "dissect" may be due to influence from "bisect", whose first syllable is always like "buy", not "bih".
(Incidentally, the "die" pronunciation is an option given in _Webster's Third International Dictionary_, but not in the _OED_.  A.E. vs. B.E.?)
Similarly, contamination from one word to another may be at work in "dissolve"—perhaps influenced by the [z] sound of "resolve"?


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## Sibutlasi

berndf said:


> <...> Spanish doesn't have the [z] sound at all, so that doesn't count (as CapnPrep said above). <...>



Actually, that is not true: whenever syllable-final "s" is followed by a  syllable starting with a voiced consonant, it is pronounced [z], as in  "lesbiana", "desviación", "desde", "riesgo", "sesgo", "isla", "Esla",  "islámico", "mismo", "chusma", "asno", "asram"....etc. On the contrary,  that never happens when a vowel follows "s" inside a word, because in  that case "s" must be syllable-initial and so voiceless, i.e., [s].  Across word boundaries, finally, a syllable- (and word)-final "-s" may  or may not be asimilated to a following vowel or voiced consonant, as in  "...es en Madrid" or "...es de Madrid", depending on how carefully and  how fast the speaker articulates such sequences. So, why an intervocalic  (and syllable initial) "s" cannot be realized as [z] requires as much  explanation in Spanish as it does in other languages, even if Spanish  has no phonemic s/z contrast (which may be what you meant).

S.


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## berndf

Sibutlasi said:


> which may be what you meant


Yes indeed.


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## CapnPrep

jkerchek said:


> How about dissect?


I would say the -_ss-_ is pronounced as [s] so why are we discussing it in this thread? 


			
				jkerchek said:
			
		

> I haven't found a single exception for dis-s  reading dies.


Actually, I believe you have…  And here's another one: _dissyllabic_.


			
				jkerchek said:
			
		

> WHY WHY WHY?


In these two cases, if it makes you so upset, you can choose a different pronunciation of _dissect_ (with [dɪ]) and a different spelling for _disyllabic_ (with only one "s"). And you can look down your nose at everyone who does it different because you know English better than them. Isn't that nice?


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## jkerchek

Make sense!


Cenzontle said:


> I sent a post that seems to have disappeared.  Maybe there's a rule against consecutive postings.
> In that note, I suggested that the "die" pronunciation of "dissect" may be due to influence from "bisect", whose first syllable is always like "buy", not "bih".
> (Incidentally, the "die" pronunciation is an option given in _Webster's Third International Dictionary_, but not in the _OED_.  A.E. vs. B.E.?)
> Similarly, contamination from one word to another may be at work in "dissolve"—perhaps influenced by the [z] sound of "resolve"?


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