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short-long foot

Meter
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A metrical foot consisting of one short (unstressed) syllable followed by one long (stressed) syllable, as in iambic meter

Detailed Definition
A short-long foot is a metrical unit consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable (iamb) or two unstressed followed by one stressed (anapest), but the term may also refer to amphibrachic or other asymmetric feet that alternate brevity and emphasis for rhythmic variety.
Example
Example in poetry:
In iambic meter, “to-DAY” is a short-long foot; In Shakespeare’s “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” each “shall I,” “com-PARE,” etc., is a short-long foot; In Emily Dickinson’s hymn meter, “be-CAUSE I could not stop for Death” uses short-long feet; In W.B. Yeats’s “When You Are Old,” “When YOU are OLD and GRAY and FULL of SLEEP” relies on short-long feet.
Additional Notes
A short-long foot (e.g., pyrrhic + spondee) alternates light and heavy stresses for dynamic contrast; often appears in mixed meters—use to mirror emotional or thematic tension.
Also Known As
Iambic variant light-heavy foot breve-long foot rhythmic dipody Iambic foot Short-long unit
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