unstressed syllables

[viet_ghat]

The word "soccer" did not, as you might think, originate in America, but in England. The game of football had divided into two separate games -- rugby football and association football. In the slang of the elite privately-run schools for the privileged, many words and nicknames were created by taking a single short syllable and adding `-er' to it. Thus "rugby" was shortened to "rug" and then had "-er" added to make "rugger" (and today, this is still the slang term for rugby among the upper classes in England). "Association", to fit in with this slang, had all of its unstressed syllables removed, leaving "soc", add "-er" to that and you get "soccer".


Would anyone explain the coloured `words' in the above paragraph?

[BobK]

In the slang of the elite privately-run schools for the privileged = In the language used by the small and unfairly well-resourced schools run outside the state education system.

Look here for a definition of 'syllable': syllable: Definition and Much More from Answers.com

What the writer says about dropping unstressed syllables to get 'soccer' is wrong. The derivation is right, but the mechanism is wrong. The main stress in 'Association' is on the /eı/; this syllable is dropped as well as the unstressed ones, and the one with secondary stress - /səʊ/ - has the vowel modified to /ɔ/. Also, the unstressed /si:/ becomes /k/.

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[viet_ghat]

Could anyone tell me what is `unstressed syllabus'?

[BobK]

It's an unstressed syllable. A word with two or more syllables has one syllable that is pronounced with more emphasis than the others.

In, for example, 'English' the first syllable is stressed; the second is unstressed: dah-duh.

In 'express' the second syllable is stressed; the first is unstressed: duh-dah.

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