House(s)

[Joel S. Berson]

I believe I say (forgive the dumbed-down phonetics) "howse" but
"how-ziz".  Is that peculiar or rare?  Am I making the plural easier
for me to say by attaching the Z sound of the plural's S to the root's S?

Joel

At 1/26/2010 02:18 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 11:03 AM -0800 1/26/10, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>>On Jan 26, 2010, at 9:44 AM, Larry Horn wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>I don't know if this has been discussed here or elsewhere, but I
>>>noticed a radio ad this morning promoting some upcoming game by
>>>describing the teams involved as "powerhouses", with the
>>>pronunciation /paw at rhausIz/...
>>
>>/hausiz/ for the plural "houses" is common enough that you'd need to
>>get more information about the speaker's pronunciations.
>
>True for the radio announcer, but as noted I'm pretty sure I'd be
>likely to pronounce "powerhou[s]es" with a voiceless fricative if
>it's a metaphorical use but I'd never pronounce it that way if it's
>used literally (as an endocentric compound, as in "lighthouses",
>"outhouses").  Is there anyone else who shares that intuition?  If
>it's just me, I withdraw the claim.
>
>>>Arnold (or Ben), is there a Language Log posting on "powerhou[s]es"
>>>or analogous cases?
>>
>>i don't recall any.
>>
>>arnold
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
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>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org