Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 December 16

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 16

Why is the 's' in curse voiceless

When the s in curs is not? This seems to be a regular thing; for example, sparse and spars, averse and avers, etc. ÷seresin 11:03, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

You mean why is "curs" pronounced as kurz ? StuRat (talk) 12:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The plural of 'cur'? 's' in plurals is usually voiced when coming after a voiced consonant or vowel. The final 's' in the plural of 'curse' <curses>, for example, is voiced. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:34, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure what kind of answer you are looking for. There are hundreds of regular English words that end in the voiceless "s" sound. It's a fairly standard construction, and I don't know what sort of answer you are seeking with the "why" question here. The terminal "z" or "s" sound at the end of English words to indicate plural is unrelated to the "s" sound that ends words like "curse". In general, usually (though I am sure that counterexamples exist), if a word ends in a voiced sound (voiced consonant or vowel) then plural is formed with the "z" sound, while if it ends with a voiceless consonant, then the plural is formed with the "s" sound; c.f. "dogs" and "cats". One notable exception is words that end with some Sibilant sounds, like "s" or "tch", take the voiced "z" plural. But beyond that, I don't know what you're looking for when you ask why words like "curse" and "sparse" end in the voiceless "s" sound. That's the way they're pronounced. --Jayron32 12:43, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I think the answer is, there are words in English where a final s after a liquid (l or r) is pronounced voiced, and words where it's unvoiced, and the orthography needs a way of distinguishing between them. The solution used is to put an e after the unvoiced ones. --Nicknack009 (talk) 12:48, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• The Online Etymological Dictionary is your friend. See the entry for curse. The Old English language did not have /z/ as a phoneme, although the sound [z] was an allophone of /s/ when it was found between two other voiced sounds. But words like curse, verse, and horse derived from words ending in ess; curs, vers, and hors, which therefor did not have an /s/ between two voiced sounds. μηδείς (talk) 21:30, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
  • I'd say the most of these like words came either from French or from Latin through French, and in French ‹s› is [z] between two vowels, not between a sonorant and a vowel.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:07, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

The source of curse is unknown and the word is not found outside English. Horse is perfectly native. And these words do not end in a vowel in Old English. That is a modern spelling convention presumably to visually differentiate these words from plurals. μηδείς (talk) 19:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)