Traditionally, the 'z' sound is sometimes represented by the letter 'z', but more often by the letter 's', as in rise, risen and realise. This inconsistency can be seen in plurals which are written with an 's' but which very often have a 'z' sound - for example: trees, senses.
The big problem with these inconsistencies is that when we come across the letter 's' we don't know whether it represents the 's' sound or the 'z' sound. And when we are writing a representation of a 'z' sound we don't know whether to write 's' or 'z'.
Traditional spelling goes to great lengths to show that the letter 's' represents the sound 's' - for example a second 's' is added as in less or hardness, or an 'e' is added as in sense or terse.
e-speec achieves a significant simplification by representing all 's' sounds with the letter 's', and all 'z' sounds with the letter 'z'. Then we don't need a double 's' or an 'se' to represent the 's' sound - for example, les (less), Lez (Les), sens (sense), sensez (senses), rase (race), rasez (races), the cat's ize (the cat's eyes), the tree'z leevz (the tree's leaves).
Adding an 's' or 'z' to a word happens when forming plurals (for example 'cats') or third person
present tense of verbs (for example, 'sits'), or possessive case of nouns (for example 'the cat's foot').
In all these cases the sound is 's' (rather than 'z') only when the sound before it is not voiced (the voice
box is not vibrating) - so the 's' sound occurs only after p, t, c, f or soft 'th' as in cloth.
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