Question:
what is a stressed word and an unstressed word?
Jojo
2011-10-01 18:23:14 UTC
can you please give a really nice and big explanation and lots of examples. I need to know this to write a poem for class.
Five answers:
classmate
2011-10-01 19:14:32 UTC
You're asking about meter in poetry. Meter is a rhythm created by a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Not words. Syllables.



Let's use some of the words in your question to illustrate:



The word "really" has two syllables. When you say that word out loud, you give a little extra push or emphasis or stress to the first syllable. You say "REAL ly," not "real LY."



When you say the word "explanation," you stress the first and third syllables -- "EX pla NA shun." Try saying it with any other stress pattern -- "ex PLA na SHUN," for example -- and you'll hear how wrong that sounds.



When you say "example," you stress the middle syllable -- "ex AM pul."



For any word with more than one syllable, you can identify the stressed syllables by saying the word out loud and listening for where you naturally put the extra emphasis. When a line of poetry has a lot of one-syllable words, you have to say the whole line out loud to hear which words naturally get stressed. For example, the first line of William Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night has ten syllables and only nine words. There are eight one-syllable words in that line, and just one two-syllable word:



If music be the food of love, play on.



When you say that line out loud, you can hear how the stresses fall:



if MU sic BE the FOOD of LOVE play ON



Try stressing the line any other way, and you'll hear that it doesn't sound right.



(None of those one-syllable words is naturally stressed or unstressed by itself. Words that are stressed in that sentence might be unstressed in a different sentence. Each word is stressed or unstressed because of the way it fits together with the words around it.)



When you're writing your poem, just keep saying the lines out loud. You'll be able to hear the stress patterns.
Nirvana
2011-10-01 18:29:55 UTC
I have a feeling that I'm misunderstanding what your trying to ask, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

In my opinion, a STRESSED word is a word where you put a lot of emphasis in. For instance, if you repeat the word a lot, or in the case of poetry, make it not rhyme while the rest do. A stressed word can also (and usually is in novels, etc) a word in italics, because it means that the word is meant to be said in a stressed matter.

An unstressed word would be a word that is undervalued. For instance in poetry, you would rhyme everything and sneak in an important word that most people won't note the significance of unless they study it or you reveal the significance to them.

Or it's just the opposite of a stressed word, so a completely useless word that is used only for connects one word to another. Like, for, a, the, etc.

I'd ask my english teacher though, or the smartest kid in class. (Or if you want to seem smart in front of your english teacher/can't ask go ask a librarian or something.
?
2016-10-23 05:44:10 UTC
the final way is to chat the poem aloud and pay interest to in case you tension the words or no longer. on your occasion above here words are under pressure: poultry, down, walk - did, comprehend, observed - bit, attitude, halves - ate, fellow, uncooked The others are unstressed.
itchy
2011-10-01 19:09:54 UTC
Do you mean syllable?

Stressed and unstressed syllables are the foundation for iambic pentameter and other meters



da dum da dum da dum da dum da dum

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May
Bob S
2014-03-22 23:20:25 UTC
poop on the ledge


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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