It puzzles me to hear the odd way people sometimes pronounce the word “processes.” They say “processees,” as if it were the name of a Greek hero, mighty Processes, friend of Hercules and Achilles, slayer of Parentheses and Apostrophes.
There are, of course, words that come from Greek and do make their plurals with “ees” sounds, “Parenthesis” is actually one of them; one parenthesis, two parentheses; one axis, two axes; one crisis, two crises.
But “process” isn’t from Greek. It’s from Latin. The singular isn’t “processis,” so there’s no earthly reason to pronounce the plural “processees,” any more than you’d pronounce the plural of “box” “boxees,” or the plural of “dress” “dressees.”
People do the same thing to the word “biases” sometimes, pronouncing the plural “biasees.” “Bias” isn’t Greek either, so don’t try to give it ouzo. There are enough weird plural formations in our magpie fusion language–remind me to straighten out the whole criterion/criteria issue sometime–without making a simple one all fancy and exotic.
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