The bus's gone.

[GeneD]

The bus's gone.

Is it possible to shorten 'has' this way after a word ending in 's'? If so, how should it be pronounced? The buses gone?

 

[SoothingDave]

Yes, people will say this. Yes, it sounds like "buses."

No, don't write it like that.

 

[teechar]

The bus's

The buses

Those sound exactly the same.

 

[GeneD]

Do you mean I shouldn't write buses or bus's? I'm just not sure about the latter.

 

[emsr2d2]

Don't write "bus's" if you mean "bus has".

The buses are late. :tick:
The bus's wheels are blue. :tick:
The bus's gone. :cross:
The bus has gone. :tick:

 

[GeneD]

If it is wrong to write "bus's" (in the sense of "bus has"), I suspect that maybe there are those who might also consider wrong to pronounce it as "buses". Is it so? Or is it completely "safe" to pronounce it this way? Are there those who may think it's ungrammatical? Any prescriptive grammarians or any other kind of grammar police?

 

[GoesStation]

If it is wrong to write "bus's" (in the sense of "bus has"), I suspect that maybe there are those who might also consider wrong to pronounce it as "buses". Is it so? Or is it completely "safe" to pronounce it this way? Are there those who may think it's ungrammatical?

It's normal pronunciation which nearly every Anglophone employs. As an American, I'm thinking is when I say something that sounds like the bus's gone. If I were saying the bus has, I'd articulate the h at least a little and generally reduce the a​ to a schwa.

 

[jutfrank]

My pronunciations of buses and bus has are not identical.

The first uses a short /i/ sound, to make a suffix that sounds like the word is.

The second uses a schwa.

I think my pronunciation is fairly typical of standard BrE.

 

[SoothingDave]

I was thinking "bus is" when I gave my response.

 

[GeneD]

Cus has done it.

Just out of curiousity, would you Dave and GS (as AmE speakers) shorten the example above the way the /h/ sound wouldn't be pronounced? (Cusəs done it.) There doesn't seem to be a chance of ambiguity as in 'the busəs gone'. How would you shorten that sentence?

I'm not sure if the name 'Cus' is common enough not to cause misunderstanding here. I just tried to recall a name ending in 's', but nothing except Cus D'Amato (the former Mike Tyson's trainer) sprang to mind.

 

[GoesStation]

How about Russ has done it? I don't normally articulate the h and I reduce the a to a schwa in a phrase like that. If the second syllable in Russ has done it differs from that in Russ's dog is dirty,​ I barely notice it.