Boustrophedon
 

Serious question. Where does the main stress fall in the word "boustrophedon"?

I've looked it up and there is no consensus. Help?

My guess is that least 99% or your readers won't know how its pronounced either and, if they look it up, they will find one of the differing stress-pronunciations that you have. This means either they'll think you're wrong (if they find a different one than you opt for), or right (if they find the one you adopt) or perhaps they will simply follow your lead as the metre dictates. And given there's no consensus, likely there's no single correct answer, so I'd just so go with works best for you given the metrical constraints of the line.

Another thought.

Let's assume there is a correct pronunciation and the primary stress could be on the first, second of third syllable. If these were equally likely, then assuming you're writing iambic verse, getting the metric stress to fall on the first and third syllables gives you a two-thirds probability of getting it right :)

Thanks Matt, here and elsewhere. I can actually move the word within the line to make it "right", but I shall consider for a while. There is a growing number on Facebook insisting on a third-syllable "ee". I shall cling to your good sense.

Looking online, I can only find it with primary stress on the third syllable and secondary stress on the first. The Collins and Meriam-Webster dictionaries give that pronunciation (also Wikipedia and dictionary.com). The OED site seems to be down at the moment, which is where I'd normally look first.

Annie,

The OED says the stress is on the penultimate syllable. I think you (and I) hear it said with the primary stress on the ultima sometimes (me: often, and how I say it) because that's where it is in Greek.

All that's to say that the word can be two iambs or two trochees and be okay, you just want to think about the speaker of the poem: are they going to be more interested in standard pronunciation or Classical?

Thanks, Andrew. I am the speaker and want it to be "right". I need the word to form a link with agricultural history.

The subject doesn't give a stuff, he's busy exterminating species with a knapsack sprayer.

Then, given traditional English pronunciations (and all I get from the OED), I'd go

/ˌbuːstrəʊˈfiːdən/

Thanks, Andrew.

For what it's worth, Robert Frost pronounced the word the same way I do: BousTROPHedon:

From "From Plane to Plane:"

" [we] . . . at every line end

Pick up our eyes and carry them back idle

Across the page to where we started from.

The other way of reading back and forth,

Known as boustrophedon, was found too awkward.”

Pick whatever meter works best for you, and make sure that the preceding lines establish that. There are probably about eight people in the world who (a) know what "boustrophedon" means, (b) use it in a poem, and (c) worry about the meter. And most of them are already on this thread (Julie hasn't shown up yet.) In other words - what Matt said. Go with what works best for the poem and direct the meter accordingly. And if anybody disagrees with your meter choice, get even with them swiftly and quietly!

It depends. Are you reading it backwards or forward?

Thank you so much. Aaron for the Frost-precedent and Michael for the carte blanche. I am in your debt, all of you.

FWIW - i.e., not very much - I have a poem which states, "Still the tractor rolls / in boustrophedon down the beach," and that's how I scan it.

Cheers,
John

Sorry, John - I should have mentioned you as one of the Octet of Enlightenment.

In Greek, the accent's on the final syllable, because it's an adverb:

I suppose that's an argument for pronouncing it "boo-STROH-fee-DON" in English, which keeps the stress on the final syllable despite English's abhorrence of three unstressed syllables in a row.

The main argument for "boo-stroh-FEE-don" is probably that the "e" is an eta rather than an epsilon, and Greek accents don't recess past the penultimate syllable if that syllable is long. (But anyone who moves the stress from the last syllable of this word is disregarding the original Greek, anyway, and it seems silly to make a point of pedantically adhering to one rule while ignoring another.)

Also, in English, it's not an adverb--it's a noun. So whatever.

Bottom line: I think you can make a case for whichever you'd like.

I feel relieved to know, Julie, that my stress here isn't wildly out of left field. Otherwise I'd have to revise the thing.
Michael, I've never been in an octet before. Thank you!

Cheers,
John

Thanks, Julie, though I feel I am using the word adverbially...

I hear boustrophedon either as two unaccented syllables, though with the first slightly more stressed than the second, followed by an accented and an unaccented syllable; or alternatively, simply as two trochees, thus boustrophedon. An example of the first and of the second second. The received pronunciation in English allows at least that much variability, so I would stress whichever way accommodates the meter at hand in the context. If that helps any.

x
It is a new word for me.
.made been has day My
Into the shoebox it goes.
x
x

"boo-stroh-FEE-don", with a light accent on syllable one.

Ι ωιλλ νοω ωριτε αν ΕΡΙΚ ωιθ θατ ας ιτ'ς τιτλε ανδ νεχτ το λαςτ ωορδ. Στανδ βαςκ & ωατςΗ.

Allen, your sigma isn't aspirated?
No a/c here in Europe. Can't sleep in this heat.

Cheers,
John

I have been wondering, how is it that seemingly every other post of yours comes from some new country or other or continent? If I did not know any better, I would have taken you for an international airline pilot ever on the move. You are lucky, in any case. I have more pages in my passbook than my passport but I wish it were the reverse.

Hi Erik, I have a nephew actually who’s an airline pilot. My wife and I are teaching study abroad this summer. Exhausting but fun.

Cheers,
John

Thanks, everyone. I now know what I’m going to do. I have gathered a basketful of advice and wisdom from here and from Facebook and am grateful to everyone. Chris Childers and Alicia Stallings have added their advice and John Psaropoulos, too. The upshot? I can go with my instinct without abusing my freedom.

What I wanted was what “you” would “say”, and I was aware that ancient and modern Greek are very different beasts. The shadow across the page was a memory of an edition of a long-running wireless programme here in the UK, called “In Our Time”, whose host, Melvyn Bragg, presents himself as a sort of honest Everyman, asking expert opinions on “deep” or historically controversial subjects. In one edition they addressed the subject of the Soul and the poet Ruth Padel kept mentioning the “Psoo-hay” and MB felt the need to ask if she might not say “Sykie” like the rest of us.

The programme is broadcast in the morning as a live 45 minute discussion and this is edited down to 30 for an evening repeat. The podcasts are also 30. I have a feeling Melvyn’s tetchy prod will not have been preserved, but I will never forget hearing it and the resolve I made that day.

Bless you all.

Ah, the "psoo-hay" and the "sykie." Do I dare to say "Pee-seeche"?

Oh, Ed - behave yourself! Roll up your trouser-bottoms and listen out for mermaids (hee hee).

Time now, for this to slide gracefully out of sight.