One for Glenny

[Terry]

No wonder people from other countries find English hard to understand,
Most of us locals aren't a full bottle on it either.

Terry

[David Campbell]

Nothing to add to Glenny's latest post re "rattling"...that sums it up neatly. Two syllables.

But to go back to the earlier reference to "solitary", pity the poor judge when a word like "mandatory" is used (not too often, fortunately!), where stress, pronunciation, and number of syllables can be contentious.

MAN-da-try or MAN-da-tory or man-DATE-ry or man-DATE-ory or man-DA-try or man-DA-tory

Aaaarggh!

David

[Stephen Whiteside]

I criticised my secretary
For being so dilatory.
I told her punctuality
Was absolutely mandatory.

She called me regulatory,
And things uncomplimentary.
For deficit of industry
She's now at the job registry.

[Terry]

Hi Glenny & David & stephen,

It would appear that the best way to safeguard ourselves is to find another word?



Terry

[Glenny Palmer]

Very likely the best option Terry.
But what has come out of this is an important learning/teaching component that needs sharing ie. how to correctly identify the number of syllables in a word...and...to understand just where the appropriate stress falls, on which syllable. Martin is an accomplished writer and was probably highly confused by the prior mentioned judge's opinion. Hopefully this will help not only his writing prowess but many others' as well....and...alert teachers to the importance of covering this aspect. All good....

[Zondrae]

My bit,

A good exercise is (applying one of Glenny's tips) to say your poem out loud. This often shows up any glitches.
But first you have to write something...

[manfredvijars]

What was taught to me was that vowels are commonly 'stresses'

rattling = TWO stresses
rambling = two stresses

EXCEPT when they're on the end (of the word) however the exceptions are sly, pry etc. The "y" substitutes for "i"

EG: fire = ONE stress
TWO vowels, one on the end = one stress

verbs like, love shove, push etc. = one stress
in the case of 'tense' verbs ...
loves, loved, shoved, pushed etc. STILL = one stress

and so too for ...
belonged, beloved = two stresses

yet end vowels in ...
Interstate = THREE stresses
compensate = three stresses



Yes, I know there are exceptions to the above, (like silly = two stresses)
but that is the 'general' rule.


Hope this helps.


Cheers,

Manfred.

[Bob Pacey]

Now I'm stressed !!!!!!


Bob

[Heather]

We don't want to see you unstressed Bob!

[David Campbell]

In response to Zondrae's suggestion about reading a poem out loud, in terms of sorting out pronunciation glitches that might affect stresses or rhymes it's probably better to get someone else to read it. Reading it yourself will only repeat the problem. When I was a kid I read all the Biggles books, and he was constantly knocking off the bad guys with an automatic...which I pronounced au-TOM-a-TIC for years until someone set me straight.

And never assume that a judge will be aware of, or will tolerate, alternative pronunciations. This goes back to my rhyming difficulty with a judge re the pronunciation of "because". Does it rhyme with "was" or "pause"? Both should be acceptable. Similar flexibility in terms of stresses is needed for that old favourite "controversy". Some emphasise the first syllable, others the second. Terry's suggestion about avoiding words that might cause a problem is a good one.

But some things are NOT acceptable, and that goes for the mess that is often made of "mischievous". It has only 3 syllables, pronounced miss-chee-vus. For some unknown reason an extra syllable gets added so it comes out as miss-chee-vee-us. That is simply wrong...the word ends in "ous", not "ious".

There's a useful list of common incorrect pronunciations at: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/50-inco ... uld-avoid/

Cheers
David