929. While we were looking into why we use the word "score" to mean "twenty," our minds were blown by how many languages still have remnants of a base-20 counting system. And then we learned the secret rules that explain why some plurals end with an "s" sound and others end with a "z" sound. It was quite a week!
929. While we were looking into why we use the word "score" to mean "twenty," our minds were blown by how many languages still have remnants of a base-20 counting system. And then we learned the secret rules that explain why some plurals end with an "s" sound and others end with a "z" sound. It was quite a week!
| Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/score-dogz/transcript
| The "score" segment was written by Susan K. Herman, a retired U.S. Government multidisciplined language analyst, analytic editor, and language instructor.
| The "Cats and Dogz" segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." You can find her at valeriefridland.com
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Eight score ago, Honest Abe brought forth, on this continent, a new question, conceived in mathematics, and dedicated to the proposition that all numerical adjectives are created equal.
Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. This week, we investigate the word "score" and we answer a fascinating question about English plurals.
by Susan Herman
In our “killer bunnies” episode back in April, we also talked about the use of “dozen,” and that got us thinking about other words based on numerical systems – specifically the use of “score” to represent “20.” If you were paying attention during history class, you probably remember that Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in 1863 begins: “Four score and seven years ago …” But when the heck was “four score and seven years ago”? According to Ben’s Guide, part of the Government Printing Office, “a score is another way of saying 20, so Lincoln was referring to 1776, [the year the U.S. declared independence from England], which was 87 years before 1863.”
So where does the word “score” come from, and what is its meaning? According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it came from the late Old English “scoru,” meaning “twenty,” which came from the Old Norse “skor,” meaning a "mark,” “notch,” or “incision” (more on that connection later). The Celts of central Europe likely introduced the word to the English and French.
One of the definitions of the noun “score” in the Macmillan Dictionary is “a group of 20 people or things,” and it is marked as a literary usage, meaning it is not part of modern, everyday language. We have to go all the way back to 1100 to see the first recorded use of the word in this sense, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
But Merriam-Webster also cites an example of “score” as a numerical adjective, as in “fourscore and seven years.” The adjectives “threescore” and “fourscore” are considered archaic synonyms for “60” and “80,” according to OED. Interestingly, “score” is not commonly used with other numbers in that way, although the OED has some rare examples such as “He died at two-score,” referring to age, from Halliwell Sutcliffe’s 1899 book titled "Shameless Wayne."
And in case you ever want to break out a “fourscore,” it's typically written as one word today, but before the 1900s, you could also find it hyphenated or written as two separate words.
So now we know what old Abe meant in his speech, but how did the word come to mean “20”? Well, it’s an interesting story, so hold on for the ride. This usage comes from the vigesimal number system; “Vigesimal”comes from the Latin “vīcēsimus,” meaning “twentieth.” According to Wikipedia, this system (also called “base-20” or “base-score”) uses units of 20. This is similar to the decimal numeral system, based on 10, that you are familiar with (if you were paying attention in math class). But a vigesimal system has 20 places, instead of the 10 in our decimal system.
You may be thinking: “That’s cool, Grammar Girl, but why?” Well, as I mentioned before, the original Old Norse “skor” meant “mark,” “notch,” or “incision.” The Online Etymology Dictionary notes that the idea of using “score” to mean “20” probably came from “counting large numbers (of a passing flock of sheep, etc.) by making a notch in a stick for each 20.” Makes sense, right?
But why a notch at 20 and not 10 or 17 for that matter? Well, some people think it is because if you count on your fingers and your toes, you get to 20. I guess if people got creative and included their ears, we could have had a base-22 system.
Now, you may be surprised to know (we were!) that vigesimal systems are used all over the world in many different languages. Per Wikipedia, the most notable example is French (except in a handful of locations). Dictionary.com further explains that in French, “quatre-vingts,” or “80,” literally means "four-twenties" and “quatre-vingt-dix,” or "90,” translates to "four-twenties-ten." Interesting!
But wait; there’s more! Besides French, Wikipedia lists the following languages, among others, as using vigesimal systems:
Well, “score” can also refer to an indefinite number. One of the definitions Merriam-Webster lists for “score” is “an indefinitely large number,” and Macmillan Dictionary includes the definition “a large number of people or things.” But unlike “dozen,” both the singular “score” and the plural “scores” require “of” – as in “We need a score of volunteers for the food drive” or “Scores of volunteers signed up to help with the food drive.”
Well, I told you it would be a wild ride (at least for those of us who are not mathematically inclined.) If you are a math nerd, check out this Wikipedia article on vigesimal systems (which blew our grammar-nerd minds) As always, language is full of fun surprises – scores and scores of them!
That segment was written by Susan Herman, a retired U.S. Government multidisciplined language analyst, analytic editor, and language instructor.
by Valerie Fridland
Next, I have an interesting question from a listener:
"Hi, Grammar Girl. I have a pronunciation question. I've noticed the people who have Spanish or Portuguese as their first language tend to pronounce the letter 's' with an 's' sound, like 'sss,' when they speak English even in words where native English speakers with uses a 'z' sound. This got me to thinking: How do native English speakers know whether 's' should be pronounced as 's' or 'z' when we form plurals? When we add 's' to a noun to form a plural, we know which way to pronounce it even for a new or unfamiliar words. We say 'cats' with an 's' sound but 'dogs' with a 'z' sound. What are the rules that determine which sound to use, and why do we have these two ways of pronouncing the same letter? Thanks for taking my question."
Thank you for the question! You've noticed a real thing in English: the “s” sound we use to make plurals seems to change depending on the word it follows. For example, when you pluralize words like "cat," "lip" or "peak," you get an “s” sound on the end ("cats,” “lips” and "peaks"), but when you pluralize words like "dog," "rib, or “bed," the plural ending sounds more like a “z” sound. And then to add to the linguistic chaos, the plurals of words like "horse," "leash," or "judge" aren't content to just tack on an “s” or a “z” but also need us to toss in another vowel sound, as in "horses, leashes and judges." So, what is going on with our plurals? And how on earth do all native speakers of English seem to just know which sounds go where?
Well, there actually is a method to the madness. The sound we use in each case depends on the last sound in the word when it's singular. So, for example, take the word "cat," a word that ends in a “t” sound. Now, “t” sounds are what we call voiceless sounds in English, a group of sounds that also include sounds like “s,” “sh,” “f,” and “k.” When we talk about a sound being voiceless, it just means that the vocal folds – the flaps on top of your larynx that make speech sounds – these folds are pulled apart as air passes through them. And when that happens, the vocal folds don’t vibrate.
In contrast, voiced sounds like “z,” “v," “d,” “n,” and “g” are created when the vocal folds are pulled close together and air is forced through them, which makes them vibrate. To get a sense for this difference in voicing, put your hand on your Adam’s apple (roughly midway down your neck) and say “sssssss” then “zzzzzzz” – do you feel the difference? That buzzing you feel when you make the “z” sound is caused by vocal fold vibration, or “voicing.” Making an "s" sound, on the other hand, doesn't make that buzzing noise, so it's called a voiceless sound.
So, why does this matter in terms of whether your plural ending sounds more like an “s” or a “z”? Well, it matters because when the sound on the end of the word you are pluralizing is a voiceless sound (like the “p” in "hip," or the “t” in "pet"), your plural ending will also come out as a voiceless “s,” as in “hips” and “pets.” But, when the word you want to pluralize ends in a voiced sound (like the "b" in "rib" or the "d” in “kid”), then you use a voiced “z” sound on the end for the plural instead, as in "ribz" and "kidz").
And why does this happen? Because of something called "progressive voicing assimilation," which is a fancy way of saying that the voicing (or vocal fold vibration) of the one sound “spills over” onto the sound that follows— in other words, it makes the plural come out sounding like an "s" or a "z" depending on what sound came before it. So a voiceless singular word stays voiceless when it's pluralized. And a voiced word stays voiced when it's pluralized.
This is your body's way of being efficient. You just continue to either hold the vocal folds apart or pull them together when pronouncing those two sounds one after the other rather than switching. But, importantly, we don’t do this when an “s” or “z” sound is part of a root word itself rather than part of the plural suffix because most of the time, if we change an “s” sound to a “z” sound in the words themselves, it changes the meaning (like making “bus” sound like “buzz”). For the plural ending, though, there is no competing meaning for the “s” and “z” sounds, so it doesn’t matter, and vocal efficiency wins every time.
Now, what about those plurals that sound more like “ez," like what we find on "purses," "noses," and "leashes"? Well, let's think about some of the words like this: "horse,” “sash,” and “rose." All the words that take a vowel sound before the "-s" (or “ez”) are words that also end in a specific group of sounds linguists call "sibilants." These include “s,” “z," “sh,” and those at the end of words like “judge” and “lunch.” Now, since the plural suffix is itself a sibilant sound, if you tried to tack it directly onto a word ending in another sibilant sound, it would be both hard to say and even harder to understand (just try saying “buses” with an “s” and no vowel — bussssss). So we add a vowel between the end of the word and the plural "-s" so we can actually pronounce it. And, because vowel sounds are voiced sounds, the "-s" that follows is pronounced like a voiced "-z" just like before.
What’s really interesting is that the same thing happens with many other suffixes, even though we're less likely to notice it. For example, think of the apostrophe plus "s" we add to nouns to make them possessives, such as "Mignon’s” or "Pat’s.” Notice that when the name ended in "n," which is a voiced sound, the possessive "s" sounds like a “z” – "Mignonz." But, when we add the possessive “s” to the name "Pat," which ends in a voiceless “t” sound, it came out as a voiceless “s.”
We find the same thing happening with verb suffixes too! For example, the "s" we put on verbs so they agree with nouns, as in “Pat claps” or “Mignon sings,” also alternate between an “s” and “z” sound depending on what sound the name ended with – if it was voiced or voiceless. And last but not least, that "-ed" ending that signals past tense on verbs? Well, when spoken, rather than written, that “-ed” is said as either a “t” sound (as in "clapped, laughed") or a "d" sound (as in "jogged, sobbed") depending on – you guessed it – whether the final sound in the word it is attaching to ends in a voiceless or voiced sound. And, if a verb ends in a “t” or “d” sound (as in "rotted "or" padded"), there is a vowel that gets inserted to make it easier to say, just like the sibilant sounds and the plural suffixes we talked about before
So, what starts out seeming very random and chaotic is actually very rule-governed and predictable, and this pattern is something that native speakers just pick up as babies when we are learning the rules of our language without any trouble. Unfortunately, though, it can be quite a challenge for non-native speakers to learn these rules. It's much harder as an adult. People tend to learn oversimplified rules about making plurals with an "s" sound, and that gets reinforced by seeing an "s" in the spelling.
If you're struggling to learn, remember that the pronunciation is driven by the sound that comes before it. Words that end with voiced sounds, like "rib" and "kid," are made plural with that voiced "z" sound on the end. And if you're a native English speaker, you can just marvel at all the cool things you subconsciously know how to do, and sympathize with people who have to learn it as adults.
That segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." You can find her at valeriefridland.com.
And finally, I have a familect story from April.
"Hi, Mignon my name is April, and I'm coming calling from just outside of Detroit. I have a familect for you. For many generations, my grandmother one of the sweetest people in the world, also had one of the wryest senses of humor, and her thing was if you wanted to know what was for dinner it annoyed her, and her response was always 'sweet'll get you metal.' 'Sweet'll catch you metal.' So everyone in the family always knew she said that: whatever you get, is what you get, and you have to eat it and get over it. But that was our word. I've never heard of anyone else using that word. So I just that does constitute a familect. My grandmother, Beth, would always tell you that for dinner we were having 'sweet'll catch you metal.' Enjoy your show. Thank you so much for what you do have a great day. Bye."
Thanks so much, April. That is definitely a familect, and I haven't heard anything like that either. I did some Google searches using different possible spellings or word combinations and got that rare Google response you get when absolutely nothing matches your query. And it reminds me of the call we played a few weeks ago with Sheila's Belgian father saying the equivalent of "a little bit of this and a little bit of that all mixed together" when asked what's for dinner. It makes me wonder if other families have unusual words to answer that question. Maybe it's a fertile ground for familect creation! Thanks again for the call.
If you want to share the story of your familect, a word your family and only your family uses, call the voicemail line at 83-321-4-GIRL. Call from a nice quiet place, and we might play it on the show.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast, Thanks to our audio engineer Nathan Semes, and our director of podcasts Adam Cecil. To our digital operations specialist Holly Hutchings, our ad operations specialist Morgan Christianson, and our marketing associate Davina Tomlin, who recently attended what they hope will be the first of many tango classes.
And I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. That's all. Thanks for listening.