Devoiced

Back in 1984, my good friends, Bill and Joy, were married in the church where we grew up by the pastor with whom we grew up. Reverend Jack, as he was known, was a great pastor and friend, but he had his quirks. At rehearsal, during the part where the bride and groom repeat the vows after the pastor, Rev. Jack said, “…til death us do part…”, and Bill said, “…til death do us part…”.

“Everyone will notice that difference”, Rev. Jack pointed out, “if I say ‘us do’, and you say, ‘do us'”. So they practiced a half dozen times and Bill really never mastered it. Rev. Jack insisted that he go home and practice, and Bill promised he’d get it right.

But Rev. Jack also pronounced “us” like “uz”. I don’t think there was a particular reason, other than he always had. It didn’t matter. No reason to even make a point of it. Until Bill and Joy’s wedding. All of us who had been to the rehearsal were particularly attentive to the vows when Bill was called on to say those words, in the right order, so everybody wouldn’t notice. He nailed it. He got the words in the order exactly as Rev. Jack said them. Unintentionally, he also got the pronunciation the same: “…til death UZ do part…”. There we all were, in front of a full church, hiding our faces as we were in hysterics. None of us missed it. One of the brides’ maids was even bent over in laughter, but hardly any of the guests noticed anything at all out of place. Amazing.

The pronunciation of the “S” in “us” relates to this week’s random word, as it is normally unvoiced, but Rev. Jack always voiced it. That is, a voiced consonant is one where the vocal chords vibrate to produce a sound, and unvoiced would be when they don’t. “Z” is voiced; “S” is not. “V” is voiced, “F” is not, etc. Devoiced is a bit more technical than that, as it has to do with the voicing/non-voicing based on context. So, “use”, when a verb, has a voiced “S”, and as a noun, an unvoiced “S”. Wolves even has a different letter for the voiced sound than in the singular form, wolf, with an unvoiced sound.

And that, good reader, is what reminded me that 35 years ago this summer, Bill and Joy pledged to love each other “til death uz do part”.