S (letter)

S is a letter of the Latin alphabet. It is the nineteenth letter of most variants of the Latin alphabet, being placed after R and before T: for instance it is the case in the English alphabet. Its English name is pronounced [ˈes], that is 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 Missoûri, the double s 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.

The hissing s 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, hërs, 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: wê ûsed to gô thére, but wê gót tîred of ít), which, in writing, 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' sound, 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, a '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 can be spelt with s alone 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).

Miscellaneous

sy- is always sý- with the exception of sŷphon and Sýracuse, which can be Sŷracûse: sýrup, sýstem, sýnagogue, sýndicate, sýnthesis, sýntax, sýmptom, sýmbol sign (= cýmbal drum).

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

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