Pronunciation rule for biohazard vs biography

[Cherize]

I'm trying to formalize this. We pronounce biomass, biotech, and biohazard with the stress on "bi." However, with words like biology and biography, the stress is on the "o." What is the rule? Biohazard, which has four syllables, is closer to being a compound noun than biology, also with four syllables, but that's not the reliable rule I'm trying to deduce. Can anyone help?

Please excuse any mistake in punctuation or typography if italics are wrong in the words I cited and I should have used quotation marks, but a proliferation of those things abrades the eyeballs in my experience.

Edited to add: cf. the pronunciation of myopic. Why wouldn't biopic rhyme with it instead of being pronounced BYE-oh-pic, which I believe is right?

 

[jutfrank]

With words with the suffixes -logy and -graphy, the stress fall on the prior syllable.

 

[emsr2d2]

Edited to add: cf. the pronunciation of myopic. Why wouldn't biopic rhyme with it instead of being pronounced BYE-oh-pic, which I believe is right?

It's because "biopic" is a combination of two words - "bio" and "pic", short for "biographical [motion] picture". Consequently, the stress on "bio" needs to come in the same place it does in the full word - BYE-oh-graff-i-cuhl.

 

[Piscean]

BYE-oh-graff-i-cuhl.

It's bye-o-GRAFF-i-cuhl.

 

[emsr2d2]

I'm now confusing myself! When I say the word aloud on its own, I do indeed put the stress on "graff". When I say "biographical motion picture", I put the stress on "bi". Maybe it's because it's the first of two adjectives. Hmmm.

 

[jutfrank]

I think people tend more to say bio-pic rather than bi-opic because it includes the prefix 'bio' in its use as an abbreviation of the word 'biography'. (E.g. It's a bio.)

 

[jutfrank]

When I say "biographical motion picture", I put the stress on "bi".

The primary stress is on graph but there's also stress on bi- too, yes.

 

[Cherize]

It's because "biopic" is a combination of two words - "bio" and "pic", short for "biographical [motion] picture". Consequently, the stress on "bio" needs to come in the same place it does in the full word - BYE-oh-graff-i-cuhl.

I'm with this one. Biopic is close to being a compound noun: biography + picture.