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Apostrophe adviceDate: September 12, 2012 by Rebekah England  Views: 1332
Hi guys!
I could use some diction help here.
How do you sing “ ‘s “ if the word ends with an “ s “? For example: Chris’s car. Do you sing two s’s or just plain “Chris?”
Thanks!
Rebekah
Replies (4): Threaded | Chronological
John Howell on September 12, 2012 7:53pm
Hi, Rebekah. You're thinking about letters. But singers don't sing letters, they sing phonemes--individual, discrete sounds--and those don't always line up nicely with letters in English. (Any of the many varieties of English, actually.)
So what are the phomenes in "Chris's car"? K - r - ih - s - eh - s k - ah - r. To speak the words intelligibly, you have to include the "s - eh - e" (or "s - uh - s" or whatever you prefer). So to sing it intelligibly, you have to sing the same phonemes.
Where it really gets tricky is where the possessive is NOT written, but still needs to be pronounced. That's when the possessive of a word ending in "s" is written with an apostrophe (as a sort of shorthand), like "Chris'." And that happens fairly often in English.
I'm sure others may disagree. That's the wonderful thing about language!!!
All the best,
John
Applauded by an audience of 1
Stephen Doerr on September 13, 2012 12:45am
Agreed, except that for me the second 's' is a 'z', thus: 's - eh - z'. Also, at least in British English, 's - ih - z' is another option and would be considered standard in speech. The 'r' would also be silent for many of us.
--
Steve
John Howell on September 13, 2012 8:39am
Agreed, Stephen. Except for the "r." That would transform "Chris" into "Kiss," for lack of a significant phoneme. I know people have strong feelings about "r," but it's a legitimate phoneme and a legitimate liquid consonant, and the only vowel sound available in words like "bird" or "girl," which don't need to be transformed into "bud" or "gull."
John
Stephen Doerr on September 13, 2012 2:21pm
Oops, I should have made it clear I was talking about the 'r' in 'car', not the one in 'Chris'. krɪsɛzkɑː or krɪsɪzkɑː is what I was trying to suggest as British 'received pronunciation' variants.
--
Steve
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