OK, now tell me:
- Did you say “houzes” with a z sound, or “housses” with an s sound?
- Where are you from?
(I’m basically from the midwest. I say “houzes.”)
- I’m from Engerlund.
- I say houzes.
Southern Ontario here…
I say “howzez”.
Z sound. (Actually somewhere between z and s, but you can definitely hear a z sound.)
houzes
I am from Western Canada.
- HOW-ziz
- England
Houzez. Northern Virginia.
In situations like making business-related phone calls to strangers, I use what I think of as my newscaster voice, so I would say housses (s sound). When I am comfortable around friends and family, my southern (Georgia) comes out, and I would say houzes.
How sis, with an S sound.
Orygun
From Texas… “howzes”.
housses
PA
S sound. I’m from Quebec.
HOW-ziz. Upstate New York, transplanted to central North Carolina.
How-zez, upstate New York, now in Northern Virginiaz
The answers to this question might depend on whether the speaker is saying “houses” as a noun or as a verb.
Z sound.
Raised in Maryland, now in Ohio.
Not that anyone but me will care, but the technical term for the difference between the sounds in question is that z is the voiced alveolar sibilant, and s is the voicless alveolar sibilant. That is, the vocal cords vibrate when making the former sound but not the latter.
I always voice the sibilants in houses.
Northeastern Ohio.
S sound.
Excellent point, and true for me. In normal speaking, the plural noun “houses” is going to be about 50% “howzes” and 50% “howsses” mostly depending on how fast I talk. The faster I’m going, the more likely the z is to come out because I have to insert a tiny pause on an s to enunciate it enough to make it sound like an s. But if I’m talking about “houses” as a verb, I’ll emphasize the z no matter what.
I live in Washington state, grew up in CA and tend to be fussy about pronunciation. (At least, fussy when it comes to how I pronounce it; I won’t try to correct others.)
housez, Pittsburgh
I’m surprised how many people are not voicing the final s. I wonder if people actually are, but they’re not spelling it that way because they aren’t realizing it.