Re: syllable importance

Dirk Elzinga scripsit:

> I'm a bit skeptical about this. Plenty of counterexamples can be found:
Ah, good, we love those!

> 'awesome', 'cross', 'eager', 'fake', 'ill', 'like', 'loath', 'mordant',
> 'placid', 'prime', 'real', 'right', 'rugged', 'wanton', 'wrong' all fit
> within a trochaic frame but can't inflect;
I think there are ad hoc explanations for most of these:  "awesome",
"mordant", and "wanton" are rather spondees than trochees; adjectives that
already end in -er or -est can't take another one; -er is bad where it
collides with agentive -er on a homonymous verb; I don't know what to
make of "wrong".

I have no trouble with "crosser", though, and googling for "crosser and
crosser" finds 124 hits as opposed to 441 for "more and more cross",
so it is a respectable minority usage.

> So while the syllable-based generalization may be a rough approximation
> of what's going on, there's more to it that is still rather mysterious.
It sure is.

Non-rhotic limerick:

	There was a young couple from Florida,
	Whose passion grew steadily torrider.
		They were planning to sin
		In a room in an inn;
	Who could wait?  So they screwed in the corridor.
			--Isaac Asimov

"Torrid" fits the frame, but I find no Google hits except for this very
verse and one other verse, where it is rhymed with "horrider".

--
John Cowan  www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com  jcowan@reutershealth.com
In might the Feanorians / that swore the unforgotten oath
brought war into Arvernien / with burning and with broken troth.
and Elwing from her fastness dim / then cast her in the waters wide,
but like a mew was swiftly borne, / uplifted o'er the roaring tide.
        --the Earendillinwe

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