PHOtograph, phoTOgraphy, photoGRAPHic: where the stress goes

The rule

In a word family, the stressed syllable can move: PHOtograph, phoTOgraphy, photoGRAPHic. In some two-syllable words, nouns stress the first syllable and verbs the second: a REcord, to reCORD.

Arabic word stress follows fairly regular patterns, and French stresses the end of a word, so learners carry one pattern to every English word. In English, wrong stress can make a correct word hard to understand.

Examples

In a conversation

A: Did you take this PHOtograph? It's beautiful!

B: Thanks! I'm doing a phoTOgraphy course.

A: Can I reCORD a short video of your work?

B: Sure. And I keep a REcord of every photo I take.

Practice

Choose the best answer. The answers are at the end of the lesson.

1. photography
   • a) PHOtography
   • b) phoTOgraphy
   • c) photoGRAphy
2. a photographic memory
   • a) PHOtographic
   • b) phoTOgraphic
   • c) photoGRAPHic
3. Which sentence uses reCORD?
   • a) Can I record our call?
   • b) I broke the world record.
   • c) Keep a record of it.

Tip

Words ending in -graphy, -logy, -ity and -ic stress the syllable just before the ending: phoTOgraphy, biOlogy, uniVERsity, ecoNOMic. One famous exception: ARabic.

Answers

1. b) phoTOgraphy. Words ending in -graphy stress the syllable before it.
2. c) photoGRAPHic. Words ending in -ic stress the syllable before it.
3. a) Can I record our call? Only the first uses record as a verb: reCORD.

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