THE –es ENDING

When is the 'e' Silent?

It is easy to give a rule of pronunciation in cases where the where the letter ‘e’ at the end of a word is followed by ‘d’ to produce the –ed ending. Please see The Letter E.

But what is the pronunciation when the ‘e’ is followed by ‘s’ to produce the ‘es’ ending?

In these circumstances the answer is not so obvious, but  there rules concerning  the correct pronunciation in English. This point can be expressed in the same way that we speak of the –ed ending:

DOES THE ‘E’ HAVE A SOUND OR NOT?

The ‘es’ ending appears in two cases –

1. In the plural of words ending in the letter ‘e’. For example:

house, houses; rule, rules; chance, chances, bone, bones.

2. In the third person singular of the present tense of verbs that end with ‘e’ – because in this tense the third person singular MUST end with the letter ‘s’. For example –

to choose, she chooses; to smile, he smiles; to please, he pleases, to hope, she hopes.

The rules are more complex than the rule for the –ed ending as explained in The Letter E.

The ‘e’ is usually mute but it must sound in the following cases:

Where the stem of the word ends in one of the letters -

C……G…….S ……X…….Z

the ‘e’ has a sound (see list of examples below).

In addition, there are some combinations of letters followed by the letter ‘e’ where

the ‘e’ has a sound

CH……SH……SS…...ZZ

See Nouns and Plurals

For example –

CH….plurals: peach, peaches; coach, coaches; bunch, bunches.

CH….3^rd person: to touch, she touches; to reach, he reaches; to approach, she approaches, to cease, it ceases.

SH….plurals: bush, bushes, ash, ashes, gash, gashes.

SH….3^rd person: to push, she pushes; to rush, it rushes, to wish, he wishes.

SS….plurals: kiss, kisses; boss, bosses, pass, passes.

SS….3^rd person: to press, he presses, to miss, she misses, to kiss, she kisses.

ZZ….plurals: no known examples.

ZZ….3^rd person: to buzz, buzzes; to jazz up, it jazzes up.

NOTE:….if a vowel comes before the final ‘e’ then the pronunciation is guided by  Sounds of Two Vowels usually producing a single sound (but note UE, which can be mute).

It might help you to think of the pronunciation of these words if the ‘e’ were silent. In all the cases described above a sound like zzz would be produced.

The result would be –

No one could HEAR that it’s a plural.

It would make the sound of the original word incomprehensible (for example, box, boxzzz)

It would give a pronunciation which is ugly and unacceptable in English.

LIST OF EXAMPLES –

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