⟨s⟩

⟨s⟩ is an English consonant monograph consisting of a single letter S.

This reliably sounds an s phoneme /s/.

It is doubled to ⟨ss⟩.

Compare ⟨sc⟩

As /s/ or /z/

	/s/	/z/
Initial	sing, smile
Intervocalic	basic, fantasy	busy, prison
Adjacent to a consonant	also, test	observe, Tuesday
Final “s"	chaos, books	his, hands
Final “se"	goose, dense	cheese, cleanse

As /s/

• initial /s/:

same, say, scar, school, sea, sing, sit, sky, sleep, smile, soap, some, song, speak, stay, stop, study, sun, swim

• final /s/:

bus, gas, this, yes

as morphemes “-s” for words ending in /f/, /k/, /p/, /t/, and /θ/:

• plurals: chiefs, ducks, cups, students, months
• third person singular forms: laughs, thinks, helps, gets
• possessives: staff’s, Mike’s, troop’s, Egypt’s, Edith’s.

• with “se": dense, goose, house, loose, mouse, promise, release, tense

• in mid-position:

• awesome, basic, nuisance

• homophones: C/sea/see; cell/sell; cent/scent/sent; cite/site/sight; scene/seen;

As /z/

⟨s⟩ sounds /z/ as final s, mainly in common sightwords:

as, does, has, his, is, was

⟨s⟩ sounds /z/ in the after the three -s suffixes, after a preceding voiced consonant, or as part of ⟨-es⟩:

Plurals: bugs, churches, dens, keys, phones, shoes, toys

Third person singular: comes, drives, gives, knows, tells

Possessive case: Alice’s, Bob’s, Carol’s, Dave’s, Ethiopia’s, Finland’s, Germany’s

With ⟨se⟩: advise, browse, cheese, choose, lose, please, these, use, wise

• in mid-position:

• busy, cousin, desert, easy, houses, music, poison, present, president, prison, reason, visit.

The house has a voiced plural, houses.

• homophones: nose/knows; size/sighs

As /ʃ/

⟨s⟩ sounds /ʃ/ in words ending ⟨-nsion⟩:

dimension, tension, pension, pretension. etc.

And those ending ⟨-lsion⟩:

compulsion, convulsion, propulsion, etc.

And those ending ⟨-nsure⟩

censure, ensure, insure, unsure, etc.

And in:

controversial, uncontroversial

Plus sightwords: sugar, sure, surety

And Sean, Seamus, Ursula.

':consume, pursue, ensue,

As /ʒ/

⟨s⟩ sounds zh phoneme /ʒ/ in words with -ion ending -sion (except those ending ⟨-nsion⟩ or ⟨-lsion⟩, and also except not those ending ⟨-ssion⟩, which have ⟨ss⟩):

erosion, fusion, conclusion, version, vision etc.

And words ending -sure (except those ending ⟨-nsure⟩)

closure, leisure, measure, pleasure.