Discussions about eggcorns and related topics
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Chris -- 2018-04-11
Perhaps this is not an eggcorn but a regionalism. I’ve noticed that some natives of North Carolina pronounce the plural of house as HOWSSes instead of HOWZes (as I’ve always spoken it). Google hits show the spelling of howsses to be ancient, like 1560, and thus the pronunciation may also be.
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I hope people will forgive me for referring to threads on the American Dialect Society site so much recently, but the ADS folks are often talking about things that come up here. The ADS had a discussion of “houses” about a year ago. It was a bit inconclusive, but there seemed to be agreement that “housez” and “houzez” are both found in the US but the former doesn’t occur widely in the UK. One poster claimed both pronunciations existed in the northern US, but “houses” was much rarer in the South. That seems to run counter to the idea that North Carolinians use it a lot—but no one else on the thread clearly endorsed that distinction. If anyone wants to follow the thread, it starts here: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bi … &D=1&P=601
About 10 years ago, a Swedish friend asked me why I said “house” in the singular but “houzez” in the plural. (Compare “bases,” “nooses,” “blouses,” etc.) I’m still working on the answer to that, but her question focused my attention; I’ve heard both pronunciations out here in California since, though “houzez” is clearly more common. I think I personally use both—I’m not sure why.
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