Circumflex
comes from Latin
circum meaning around (like in: round and round the mulberry bush) and
flexus meaning 'bent' from flectere 'to bend' (anything flexible bends easily, and if you are flexible, you bend your mind easily too and adapt to changes, different circumstances, different ideas....)
When we flex the muscles of our arms, the shape they form - provided we have got any - looks like a big circumflex.
So a circumflex is a little mark that is bent around, it goes up first and then bends back down again. |
word
Syllable comes from Greek- συν meaning 'with, together with'.
- Greek u usually became y in English
- For reasons of pronunciation the Greek letter n is often dropped and the following consonant redoubled, like here συν becoming συλ and
λαβον meaning 'taken'
- So a syllable is: letters taken together to form an indivisible group.
- Examples: Fa-ther Christ-mas ar-riv-ed (3 words, 7 syllables)
Examples: an-ti-pro-pa-gan-dis-tic (1 word, 7 syllables)
Examples: I come to see you (5 words, 5 syllables, i.e. 5 one-syllable words)
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