6 ms·
Why is the plural form of "house" not "hice"? (2016)
- athrow 3y ago> This question was marked to be a duplicate of "Goose"–"geese" vs. "moose"–"moose" and Why is the plural form of Moose not Meese? Never change, SO, never change.
- dylan604 3y agoWho's old enough to know what cartoon character would always say meeses?
- wombatpm 3y agoIn my house we hate meeses to pieces
- mock-possum 3y agoWell I mean the first answer in the linked ‘duplicate’ does also basically answer OP’s question so - on the one hand, yeah, but on the other hand, yyeeaahh
- justinator 3y agoAlso interesting that the noun "house" is pronounced differently than the verb "to house".
- thargor90 3y agoAs a non-native speaker: how is it pronounced differently?
- barrkel 3y agoTo house is pronounced "to howz", house is pronounced "howce".
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- KMnO4 3y agoYou pronounce house like “mouse”, but “to house” is pronounced like “hows”, as in “how’s it going?”.
- dylan604 3y agoAnd Houston is only pronounced like house if you're in NY
- justinator 3y agoAnd not Who-ston? - or is it, Hue-ston?
- dylan604 3y agoHue's ton. It's a unit of weight. House-ton, we have a problem. --Jim Lovell House-ton, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed. --Neil Armstrong I feel like I'm in some alternate universe ala PK Dick where things are the same with slight twists. This one is where odd pronunciations are the norm. Like going to the Rodeo to see the cattle.
- cantSpellSober 3y agoOr in Scotland, and the last syllable is still pronounced differently (ton instead of tun).
- pests 3y agoTo me, every instance of "house" in the above sentence sound the exact same and perfect ryhme with mouse. Neiher "house" or "to house" sounds like "hows". I'm in the Southeastern Michigan area if that explains anything. edit: Using barrkel's comparison in a sibling thread - "house" and "to house" are both howce and "hows" is "howz". edit2: Further thinking leads me to conclude I have heard others use "howz" for "to house" around me and if I were speaking quickly that may be how I would say it. Just reading those sentences to myself internally at my own speed uses the howce.
- 3y ago
- kevin_b_er 3y agoThe 's' is voiced in the verb and voiceless in the noun, at least in my midland accent, which is probably closer to American TV's accents. By 'voiced', I mean your vocal chords vibrate and make a sound for it. But the lip/teeth/tongue are the same.* There are several noun/verb words where the pronunciation changes and lots where the stress changes. Another pronunciation change example that I can think of right now is 'close': The noun and the verb do the same thing with final sound. The voiced 's' is a 'z' sound. And English sadly doesn't use a different letter here. *In simple terms. I think these form an identical mouth shape, but there's probably a dialect where it doesn't. And some bizarre cases where it doesn't. Because English. And judging from another comment from someone from Michigan, they say both the same?? Also 'housing' for me uses a voiced s, but I think I've heard 'housing' both ways.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Affric 3y agoSimilar to the change in stress for "perfect" and "to perfect".
- DonHopkins 3y agoI never noticed that, but you're right. How much else is there I never noticed???
- nologic01 3y agoIt would be a rouse for all the rice and we dont want that
- Exoristos 3y agoAnd the plural of "spouse" not "spice"?
- saagarjha 3y agoYour life might have some spice in it if you have more than one spouse. Especially if they don’t know about the other ones.
- paulddraper 3y agoEven more so once they do
- p1mrx 3y agoI saw this on LoadingReadyRun in 2009: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZsgzLYavR0&t=9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZsgzLYavR0&t=9s
- dylan604 3y agoYour spouse isn't the spice of your life?
- barrkel 3y agoAnd the answer is because originally house was neuter and mouse & louse were feminine, in previous iterations of the language. Slightly buried in there. And Haus is still neuter in German, while Maus and Laus are feminine.
- whycome 3y agoLanguage is crazy. I'm always learning. This is the first time I realized what it means to "neuter" a dog.
- saulpw 3y agoAnd neither a neutered male nor a spayed female are actually sexless--you still refer to them as "he" and "she". They are merely reproductively disabled. On a side note, I just learned that 'neutral' comes from the Latin word 'neuter' (meaning 'neither').
- ruined 3y agoi used to have a cat that i never gendered in speech. of course the cat didn't care, but hilariously some people would feel the need to ask directly about my cat's genitals
- singularity2001 3y agois that related to the strange "r" plural/dual in German?
- em-bee 3y agothey also show a similar difference in plural: Häuser vs Mäuse and Läuse
- yaomtc 3y agoHere's that question in song form. Among others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ69ny57pR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ69ny57pR0
- MiddleEndian 3y agoAnd the singular form of dice is not douse.
- userbinator 3y agoI have seen it said that the use of "mouses" is correct for the plural of "mouse", but only when referring to the computer pointing device. I suspect that trend may have originally come from manufacturers in the East.
- euroderf 3y agoAntennae for bugs. Antennas for hice and radios.
- candiddevmike 3y agoI'm tired of all the syntax inconsistencies with English, what language should I use for my next project?
- FFP999 3y agoEsperanto, some would say, but others would then argue that you'll have a lot of trouble finding developers.
- Loughla 3y agoHow has their not been a successful synthetic language? It seems like something that would occur on the internet.
- jbaber 3y agoThere's always some de facto lingua franca already around.
- interestica 3y agoKinda related. Hangul (the Korean writing/character system) was created in 1443 to solve a bunch of problems related to competing adapted character systems. > the fourth king of the Joseon dynasty, Sejong the Great, personally created and promulgated a new alphabet. > The Korean alphabet was designed so that people with little education could learn to read and write. A popular saying about the alphabet is, "A wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; even a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul#History
- rtpg 3y agolearning a language is hard. Unlike with PLs, learning a language in a vacuum for your own use is ... pretty difficult and hard to apply? And on top of that there are many "good enough" solutions. English has a bunch of weird and confusing issues. But "English as a second language" is at least a variant that is stripped down, with far less weird idioms, and lets you get points across to people. "Correct" pronunciation (whatever that's worth) is also optional. Hard to beat! I thought Esperanto did have some success though! And FWIW I think many language learning communities can thrive on a bunch of people using their second language. So maybe if someone makes a fun synthetic language it can totally work!
- fuzztester 3y agoBecause English is a cut-put language, and also an argue-vague one.
- mounram 3y agoHere is the answer of ChatGPT4: The plural forms of words in English, like "houses" for "house" and "mice" for "mouse," are the result of a complex history of the English language, which includes influences from many other languages and the way words were pronounced in the past. Regular Plural Formation: The plural of "house" follows a regular pattern in modern English where we add an "-s" or "-es" to the end of most nouns to make them plural. This pattern is a simplified system that has become the standard in English. Old English and Middle English: The plurals "mice" and "lice" come from Old English and Middle English times when the language had more complex rules for making nouns plural, often involving changing the vowel sound in the middle of the word. This type of change is known as "i-mutation" or "umlaut," which was a common grammatical feature in the Germanic languages that English descends from. Irregular Plural Formation: Over time, as the language evolved, most of these complex forms were regularized to the simpler "-s" or "-es" ending, but some words, like "mouse" and "louse," retained their old plural forms. These are known as irregular plurals. Standardization and Change: English has undergone significant standardization over the centuries, and the regular "-s" or "-es" ending has become the norm due to its simplicity and regularity. However, irregular forms persist due to historical usage and the conservative nature of language when it comes to frequently used words. Thus, "houses" is a result of linguistic simplification and standardization, while "mice" and "lice" are remnants of older linguistic patterns that have been preserved in the language.
- unsubstantiated 3y agoThe way ChatGPT4 phrases an answer for this sort of a question absolves it of smug pretentiousness that is common to HN. Whether or not its a correct answer, however...
- js2 3y ago> In English, the regular pluralising pattern is adding /z/ (with some assimilation and epenthesis rules). Everything else is irregular. Meanwhile, the plural of fish is both fish (multiple of the same species) and fishes (more than one species).
- bananaanna 3y agoI love that some people are asking the important questions
- seanvk 3y agoRemind me of how in modern Irish, a prefixed t- appears before vowels in masculine nominative singular nouns. It relates to Proto-Celtic masculine nominative singular article *sindos. The t- is what remains of the d and s from Proto-Celtic: an t-athair - the father an t-úll - the apple an t-each - the horse an t-ospidéal - the hospital