Marry, well remember’d,
I reason’d with a Frenchman yesterday,
Who told me,-- in the narrow seas that part
The French and English, there miscarried
A vessel of our country richly fraught:
-Salarino
The Merchant Of Venice Act II, Scene vii Line 27
So here’s today’s question: Is every word that has ‘ed’ on the end pronounced with an emphasis, and a full syllable, on those two letters? For example: miscarried. It would appear that it is pronounced mis-car-ee-ed; four syllables. I say this because that’s what it would take in this instance to complete that line in proper iambic pentameter. I also say that because the word reason’d in today’s selection is pronounced as a two syllable word to make the verse work. And to make it a two syllable word it’s got the apostrophe d, instead of the two letters ‘ed’. Presumably if it was spelled ‘reasoned’ it would be pronounced with three syllables: ree-sun-ed. I make this comment also because Will’s works are full of verbs that end with apostrophe d. And therefore, the word stopped, for example, is pronounced with two syllables: stah-ped. And the word stop’d, or stop’t, would be pronounced with one syllable: stopt.
I don’t think I’ve made this generalization about the full syllable effect of ‘ed’ before. I’ll have to keep an eye on that and see if I’m right.
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