English Pronunciation Tip of the Day
Tip 56
Category:
Spelling-to-sound
Author: JAM
One more time <-se>
This is the last (I hope) in a series of tips about the pronunciation of the word-final sequence <-se>. The other three tips on this topic are Tip 23, Tip 42 and Tip 45. You might like to look at these again to refresh your memory.
The following groups of words have /s/ as the pronunciation of <-se>, but only if they are functioning as nouns or adjectives:
<-ouse>: house louse mouse
<-use>: abuse diffuse misuse use (but not fuse or ruse!)
Some of the above words can act as verbs. Then the pronunciation of the <-se> is /z/. So we have a number of homograph pairs. Look at the following two sentences as an example:
The use of mobile phones is forbidden during the performance. (use = /ju:s/)
Customers are not permitted to use mobile phones during the performance. (use = /ju:z/)