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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The purpose of this brief paper is to study the characteristic and prevailing accentual rhythms of English prose in as far as these occur in phrases that can be detached from the context. Two types of such phrases have been examined. They may be distinguished as (1) phrasal idioms, and (2) titles. The first class embraces such examples as “in fact,” “of course,” “to be sure,” “ebb and flow,” “fits and starts”—the permanent “bromides” of the language, representing the most ordinary contacts of mind with mind, the most necessary aspects and currents of thought, and the homeliest logic. Stripped of every superfluity by incessant use, they exhibit with peculiar aptness the form and pressure of the language in its minuter elements.
1 I shall use the term accent in the common or dictionary sense, without inquiring for the present whether accent has objective validity, or what is its relation to pitch, quantity, intensity, weight, attention-stress, impulse-waves, etc.
2 In both diagrams the figures at the bottom indicate the number of syllables, the figures at the side the percentages.
3 I may refer here, in passing, to a controversy started by a remark of Professor Jespersen's in his Growth and Structure of the English Language. The remark is to the effect that the pattern “bread and butter,” a double trochee, is far more common than the pattern “butter and bread,” a choriamb. The data which I have now accumulated tend to show that the choriambic pattern is somewhat less frequent in the titles, somewhat more frequent in the phrasal idioms, and almost precisely of the same frequency in the two taken together.
4 In view of the great interest that has attached of late to studies in the Latin cursus, it may be well to say that there seems to be no significant correspondence between the rhythms of the various types of cursus and the rhythms of the phrases that I have been studying. If there is a resemblance anywhere, it is in a form of the planus type, namely, dactyl + trochee, which is fairly common in fivesyllable phrases.
5 In the same way I have examined a considerable number of the trade names used in advertising, including, however, single-word names. The results are as follows: The threesyllable type stands first with 28.6% of the whole number. The two-syllable type is second with 22.9%, the four-syllable type third with 18%, the fivesyllable type fourth with 10.5%. As regards the distribution of the different kinds of feet, the trochee, represented by Mazda, is the preferred form. Then in descending order come the cretic, the double trochee, and the amphibrach, the last two tied for third place: To use specific examples, the preferred order is: 1. Mazda, 2. Cream of Wheat, 3. Nabisco and Prophylactic.