Those tricky “sake” expressions

July 9th, 2009 at 07:00am Barry Wood

“Sibilance” in phonetics refers to a hissing sound, most commonly made by the letter “s.” The word, appropriately enough, comes from the Latin verb “sibilare,” meaning “to hiss.”

Some quirks in English have arisen from a desire to avoid too much sibilance. Imagine Daffy Duck saying “sibilance” to get an idea of the potential problem.

Thus we have the convention for the phrases “for appearance’ sake,” “for conscience’ sake” and “for goodness’ sake.” The Daffy standard suggests these phrases have enough sibilance already without adding an “s” after the apostrophe, which would be “normal.”

They look strange, but at least they don’t appear to be unpronounceable.

Two other “sake” phrases should have that additional “s”: “for Pete’s sake” and “for heaven’s sake.”

Daffy probably would consider them all “dethpicable.”

Entry Filed under: apostrophes, set phrases, pronunciation