• TheTechnician27
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    18 hours ago

    Yeah, it comes from “putrescent” which has a stressed second syllable. “Quintessence” is a close sibling structurally if that one’s less off-putting.

    • raspberriesareyummy
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      17 hours ago

      well - today I learned. I knew “putrescent”, I’d just been saying it with stress on the wrong syllable. Thanks!

      To be fair, from the linked pronunciation example, putrescent doesn’t sound so wrong at all, while quintessence sounds really very very wrong :D We do have Quintessenz in German which is stressed on the first syllable, so that’s probably why. Coming from two latin words, combined into one, I’d argue both languages got it wrong, because the first two syllables should both have equal stress.