Mojo, Will, & Me

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. 

Comments?

The guys in this picture are some Frenchmen, but I didn't see them yesterday, and I didn't get a chance to reason with them. They were getting ready for Palm Sunday Mass and we were at the top of the south bell tower, so reasoning with them was a little out of the question. And I'm afraid, in respect to this picture, there is no ship that has miscarried, but rather the church in this picture. Care to guess where this picture is taken?