there is no E in "smooths"!!!!

[Ponders]

why do so many people put "smoothes"???

are they confusing it with soothes?

latest culprit is \link{http://www.stylfile.com/nipper-clipper.php@inventortom with his nipperclipper}

and breathe...

(I always found it surprisingly easy to see what I was cutting using a pair of baby nail scissors - less chance of removing end of finger in case of sudden movement too . I wonder if they might catch on...)

[peeriebear]

Google tells me that you're right, and that you're wrong.

[ThingummyBob]

No doubt this will be the fault of Bill Gates it usually is

[AMumInScotland]

Why not?

Soothes
Breathes
Bathes
Clothes

It's fairly common for verbs which end in -th to go to -thes

Is smooth a recognised exception then?

[Ponders]

the verbs soothe, breathe, bathe & clothe end in an e anyway though (breath, bath & cloth are not verbs )

[Ponders]

bath can be a verb, but then the plural (?) form should be baths

the past tense of to smooth would be smoothed, as the past tense of to bath would be bathed. that must be where people get smoothes from

it just makes my teeth itch!

[Ponders]

peeriebear I know it is becoming much more common; & common usage generally eventually does becomes accepted usage

my teeth will continue to itch, however

[MirandaGoshawk]

The action of 'to smooth' sounds as if it should have an 'e' on the end (like 'to soothe'), whereas describing something as being smooth doesn't.

I would have written smoothes too before this, but won't now, of course!

[Ponders]

Miranda, I think I love you

if I have only converted one person to smooths, this has been worthwhile!

[BehindLockNumberNine]

How freaky, I was pondering this EXACT thing only a few minutes ago... I wrote 'to smooth' in the context of to smooth dd's hair and then deliberated about adding an 'e'. I refrained, but am not sure...

[Ponders]

you were right not to, NumberNine

DON'T ADD AN E!!!!

[MirandaGoshawk]

Wow Ponders, you've made my day

[prism]

According to David Crystal, the reason that words like "soothes" and "breathes" are spelt that way is to distinguish them from other words that are spelt the same way, especially nouns, in this case "sooth" and "breath". In the case of "smooth", there's no corresponding noun, and so the adjective is the same as the verb, like "wet".

This is more an observation than a rule. If I hammer a nail, I do it with the noun of the same name. If I heat a cake, I do it with the same verb as the abstract noun that the cake acquires. And so on. It probably to do with the time when these words were first written down in English, and the spelling fashion of the time.

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

Has anyone tried this out on with spell-check? My American one does not even recognize "smooths" as a word and suggests "smoothes." So, yes, Bill Gates is to blame.

As a side note, "bath" is not usually used as a verb in American English.
Americans bathe the children or give them a bath.

[Ponders]

Merriam-Webster, not Gates, according to \link{http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/103422/smooths-versus-smoothes\this}