And 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.
And 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').
i 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
The '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.
To 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.
"Housing" esposes more of the howz sound. The first is just howce.
Thinking about this more... I just realized something. I struggled with a lisp and speech therapy in grade school. I distinctly remember a lesson where I was being instructed on how certain words ending in "s" actually sound like "z" like "apples" and I was pronouncing it without the z.
I was just trying to illustrate it better. I think the majority will say "howz new immigrants."
There are a few weird "same-spelling" words. You can refuse to throw refuse in the trash can. You can estimate how many estimates you might get. But I suspect that you're not a suspect in this case. But, if you get close, I'll close this thread.
A large number of those are called heteronyms which include a noun and a verb, the noun getting the stress on the first syllable while the verb receives the stress on the second. But yes I agree.
This thread is also getting into such detail that people's regional accents will start to come into play as to how they pronounce things. "Pin" vs "pen," etc.
I'm not sure that's right, if the "z"-pronounciation is for verbs. I would think the Department of Housing is talking about "housing" as a noun, rather than "housing" in a verby-way. Like the "department of transportation". You can transport something, but you don't transportation something. Or "Department of Education" isn't educationing people, it's educating people.
> I'm not sure that's right, if the "z"-pronounciation is for verbs.
It is right. The rule you are stating is an overgeneralization; it is correct for specifically distinguishing the verb forms “house” and “houses” from the singular and plural noun forms “house” and “houses”, but not really otherwise (maybe by derivation, in that “housing” is “that which houses”, but...)
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.
Remind 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
I 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.
Kinda 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."
learning 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!
esperanto is very easy to learn though. so if you can't find developer who speak fluent english, then teaching them esperanto is still faster than getting them to improve their english.
As soon as spoken language is actually used by people who aren't laser focused on ensuring that they don't misuse words or relax pronunciations, the meanings of words will shift and accents will form. People will also invent slang, as people are naturally inclined to do, and some of that slang will stick around in common speech and be accepted as regular words.
The reliance on Chinese wordstock seems silly. Make a blend of Latin and Old Norse / Proto-Germanic / Icelandic, and you might have something surprisingly accessible for most speakers of descendants of PIE.
Well 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
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.
And Haus is still neuter in German, while Maus and Laus are feminine.