Why are there 3 different ways to pronounce oo? The words loose, poodle, food, and most other words with oo have the vowel [u], which is usually spelled u or uh in German Historically this is a long o sound that was written with "oo", the pronunciation of which has shifted to [u] as a result of the Great Vowel Shift Some words with oo have instead the vowel [ʊ]: good, hood, book
pronunciation - When to pronounce long u as yoo or ooo - English . . . Whether u says oo or yoo is determined by whether or not the preceeding consonant is voiced (vibrates the voice box) or unvoiced Some guidelines for when ‘u’ says oo or yoo are: It usually says oo when it follows a voiced consonant (g, j, l, y, s, r, z) It usually says yoo when it follows an unvoiced consonant (b, d, p, c, f, h, t) As languages evolve both in pronunciation
oo-ee change for plurals - English Language Usage Stack Exchange I have ascertained from my research that whenever an oo word changes its plural form to ee, that word traces to West Germanic The counterexamples come from different languages Questions How did these irregular nouns come to be? When was an oo to ee change first attested, and why didn't the West Germanic speakers simply add an s?