In recent weeks, I introduced a few new words (like “caveat” and “nonchalant”) with pronunciations that you probably cannot “guess” correctly based on the already inconsistent correspondence between English spelling and the actual phonemes it represents.
Today, I want to introduce and contrast two pairs of examples to show another interesting (and also bewildering) point about the English writing system and how maddening its sound correspondences can sometimes be.
We can use this opportunity to first learn these words as well, if you don’t already know them. These happen to be more “everyday” English words rather than “academic” words or words you might encounter in a work context, so my guess is that they might be new to you—or perhaps you have seen them before but don’t know exactly what they mean.
The words are “fussy,” “fuzzy,” “cosy,” and “cozy.”
Let’s first look at “fussy” vs. “fuzzy.”
“Fussy” (/ˈfʌsi/ 🔈) means being very “picky” about what you like and dislike or, when it is used to describe small children, being easily upset and difficult to soothe.
For example:
My daughter is a very fussy eater.
我的女兒非常挑食。
The baby has been very fussy since getting the shot.
寶寶打針後一直很扭計。
“Fuzzy” (/ˈfʌzi/ 🔈), on the other hand, means “covered in very fine, soft hair” (this type of fine hair is called “fuzz”). It also has the figurative meaning of being “unclear” and “difficult to make out properly.”
For example:
The peach has fuzzy skin.
桃子的表皮上有一層細毛。
This is a fuzzy memory for me.
我對這件事的記憶很模糊。
So, “fussy” and “fuzzy” are two different English words with two distinct pronunciations that are differentiated by native speakers—because the starting consonants of their second syllables are respectively the unvoiced fricative /s/ and the voiced fricative produced in the same place, /z/. (I won’t repeat here what “voiced” and “unvoiced” pairs of consonants like /s/ and /z/ are. This is explained in detail in our “The Sounds of English” course.)
We can see that these two words are spelled respectively with the letters “s” and “z”—so it seems that the spelling system is pretty transparent and consistent in this instance!
😅 Now, let’s move on to the other two words I mentioned: “cosy” and “cozy.”
You might have seen either version of this word, or both versions. I say “versions” because these are actually the same word.
“Cosy/cozy” (/ˈkoʊzi/ 🔈) means “warm” and “comfortable,” and it is very often used to describe the feeling that being at home gives you.
For example:
We spent a cosy/cozy evening at home.
我們在家度過了一個溫暖舒適的晚上。
“Cosy” and “cozy” are two spelling variants of the same word with the same pronunciation. This word is pronounced with the voiced fricative /z/ at the start of its second syllable. The variant “cosy” is the conventional British spelling of the word, whereas the variant “cozy” is the conventional American spelling.
Now, do you see the maddening part about this?
If we had stayed with the example of “fussy” and “fuzzy” and hadn’t looked at any other words, we might reasonably conclude that, in English, when the pronunciation involves the consonant /s/, it is spelled with the letter “s”; whereas, when the pronunciation involves the consonant /z/, it is spelled with the letter “z.”
But this straightforward and consistent correspondence simply does not exist in English spelling, especially when we introduce the spelling variation between the two major varieties of native English in the world: American and British English.
In this example, for instance, in the “British” spelling of the word “cosy,” the phoneme /z/ in pronunciation is represented by the letter “s”—whereas in the word “fuzzy,” it is represented by the letter “z.”
One reason why the letter “s” representing /z/ in “cosy” does not create more confusion in real life is that this word happens not to exist in a “minimal pair”—meaning that there is no other word with the /s/ sound in the second syllable that is distinguished from “cosy/cozy” solely by the difference between /s/ and /z/. (But this does not make is less confusing for foreign language learners…)
As you can see just from what I have written above, the opaque English spelling system is confusing on many different levels—and even explaining one simple point about it can be quite difficult as it requires us to tease apart and integrate many different layers of knowledge about vocabulary, phonology, and regional variations.
最近幾個星期，我介紹了幾個大家單憑串字方式不會正確「猜到」讀音的新字（例如 caveat 和 nonchalant）。因為即使你對英文串字跟讀音之間這套本身已經非常不一致的對應系統有一定認識，也會根據自己所知的對應規律，對這幾個字的讀音作出錯誤推斷。
今天，我想介紹和比較兩組例子，讓大家看到英文書寫系統另一個有趣（但也令人困惑）的地方，以及它的讀音和串字對應有時可以有多令人抓狂。
如果大家本身不認識這幾個字，我們也可以趁這個機會先學習它們。這些剛好都是英文中比較「日常」的字，而不是「學術」字，亦不是大家可能會在工作場合中遇到的字，所以我猜它們對大家來說可能是新字——又或者你以前見過，但不完全知道它們是甚麼意思。
這幾個字就是 fussy、fuzzy、cosy 和 cozy。
我們先看看 fussy 和 fuzzy。
Fussy（/ˈfʌsi/ 🔈）的意思是對自己喜歡和不喜歡的東西非常「挑剔」；用來形容年幼小朋友時，也可以表示他們很容易「扭計」，而且很難安撫。例如：
My daughter is a very fussy eater.
我的女兒非常挑食。
The baby has been very fussy since getting the shot.
寶寶打針後一直很扭計。
另一方面，fuzzy（/ˈfʌzi/ 🔈）是「表面被非常幼細柔軟的毛覆蓋」（這種細毛英文就是 fuzz）抽象地，它也有「模糊不清」和「難以清楚辨認」的意思，可以用作形容記憶等。例如：
The peach has fuzzy skin.
桃子的表皮上有一層細毛。
This is a fuzzy memory for me.
我對這件事的記憶很模糊。
所以，fussy 和 fuzzy 是兩個不同的英文字，也有兩個母語人士會清楚區分的不同讀音——因為它們第二個音節開首的子音，分別是「清（沒有聲帶預振）」的摩擦音 /s/，以及在同一位置發出的「濁（有聲帶預振的）」摩擦音 /z/。（我不會在這裏再次解釋 /s/ 和 /z/ 這類「清」和「濁」的子音對是甚麼。我們的《The Sounds of English》課程有詳細解釋。）
我們可以看到，這兩個字在書寫中，分別有字母 s 和 z ——所以在這對例子中，英文的串字系統看起來相當透明和一致！
😅 但我們再看看剛才提到的另外兩個字：cosy 和 cozy。
你可能見過這個字的其中一個版本，也可能兩個版本都見過。我說「版本」，是因為它們其實是同一個字。
Cosy/cozy（/ˈkoʊzi/ 🔈）是「溫暖」和「舒適」，經常用來形容家帶給我們的感覺。例如：
We spent a cosy/cozy evening at home.
我們在家度過了一個溫暖舒適的晚上。
Cosy 和 cozy 是同一個字的兩個串法版本，讀音完全相同。這個字第二個音節開首的子音，是濁摩擦音 /z/。Cosy 是這個字在英國串字習慣中的串法，而 cozy 則是美國串字習慣中的串法。
現在，大家看到令人抓狂的地方了嗎？
如果我們只看 fussy 和 fuzzy 的例子，沒有再看看其他字，就可能會合理地得出一個結論：在英文中，子音是 /s/ 時，便會用字母 s 寫；而子音是 /z/ 時，便會用字母 z 寫。
但英文串字系統根本沒有這種直接而一致的對應關係——尤其當我們再加入英國和美國這世界上兩種主要英語母語種類對某些字的不同串法習慣時。
例如，在 cosy 這個字的「英式」串法中，讀音裏的音素 /z/ 是由字母 s 代表的——但在 fuzzy 這個字中，/z/ 卻是由字母 z 代表。
在現實中，「英式」串法的 cosy 裏的字母 s 代表 /z/ 音之所以不會造成更多混淆，主要原因，是這個字剛好不是一對「minimal pair」中的一個——換句話說，英文並沒有兩個意思不同的字，純粹以第二個音節中的 /s/ 和 /z/ 作為讀音上的區別。
因此，即使「英式」串法 cosy 以字母 s 代表 /z/，在實際使用時也不會令母語人士混淆兩個不同的字。（但對外語學習者來說，這串法還是會令人混亂……）
從這兩個組例子，大家可以看到，英文不透明的串字「系統」，在很多不同層面上都非常「不系統」——就連解釋以上看似簡單的重點也可以相當困難，因為我們需要逐一拆解並應用跟英文詞彙、語音系統和地區差異有關的多層知識。