Plain English

Lesson 8 Spelling

In pronouncing words of more than one syllable we always lay a little greater stress upon one syllable of the word; that is, that syllable receives the emphasis of the voice so as to make it more prominent than the other syllables. This is called accent, and the syllable which receives the special stress is called the accented syllable.

Accent is the stress of the voice upon one syllable of the word.

You will notice when you look up the pronunciation of words in your dictionary that a little mark called the accent mark is placed after the accented syllable, as for example: di-vide’.

Many words differ in meaning according to which syllable receives the accent. Our spelling lesson for this week contains a number of these words.

These words, when accented on the first syllable, are nouns; when accented on the second syllable, they are verbs.

Monday

Con’ tract	Con tract’
Pro’ test	Pro test’
Rec’ ord	Re cord’
Im’ port	Im port’
De’ tail	De tail’

Tuesday

Con’ vert	Con vert’
Con’ flict	Con flict’
Prog’ ress	Pro gress’
Im’ press	Im press’
Ref’ use	Re fuse’

Wednesday

Con’ test	Con test’
Con’ duct	Con duct’
Proj’ ect	Pro ject’
Des’ ert	De sert’
Ex’ tract	Ex tract’

Thursday

Con’ trast	Con trast’
Con’ sort	Con sort’
Reb’ el	Re bel’
Con’ script	Con script’
Pres’ ent	Pre sent’

Friday

Com’ pound	Com pound’
Re’ tail	Re tail’
Com’ press	Com press’
Im’ print	Im print’
Com’ bine	Com bine’

Saturday

Con’ fine	Con fine’
Sus’ pect	Sus pect’
Com’ mune	Com mune’
Ex’ port	Ex port’
In’ crease	In crease’