• @acetanilide
    link
    English
    23 hours ago

    What is a trochee? I looked it up but I don’t understand

    • Cyrus Draegur
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      fedilink
      English
      33 hours ago

      Trochee refers to a specific structure and rhythm found in some words within the English lexicon.

      It’s about how many syllables there are, and which syllable(s) are accentuated.

      Trochees are two-syllable words where the first syllable is accentuated. The word “English” is itself a trochee. Like the other social media names I mentioned: TWIT-ter, FACE-book, DIS-cord, YOU-tube

      They’re generally snappy and fun to say, especially to string together (such as in the XKCD comic I linked)

      You can categorize every word in english as fitting some pattern of rhythm for its count of syllables

      Mastodon has three syllables with stress (accentuation) on the first. MAST-o-don.

      Its metrical categorization is called Dactylic, like these words:
      BI-cy-cle, TYP-ic-al, EL-eph-ant, PO-et-ry, MUR-mur-ing, END-less-ly.