You guys are drifting towards one of my pet peeves: pronunciation. Where I live, people talk about getting a "per-MIT", when the proper pronunciation is "PER-mit".
Is 'proper pronunciation' pretentious preposterous poppycock? Some would say so. Whether it is or not, it's certainly dependent entirely on how many people say it for how long. And it's regional and dialectic.
There are many such noun/verb pairs that get slaughtered/confused constantly. In general, the noun is accented on the first syllable, the verb not
Not in Antipodean or British English. One of my pet peeves is the Americanisation of Australian which includes placing the stress on the first syllable. In general we don't stress the first syllable of a two syllable noun but the second. In Aussiespeak we used to talk about deFENCE and offENCE (nouns). Now throuhg American Basketballese it has become DEfence and OFFence. We also tend mostly to stress the second syllable of verbs. We used to say deFEND (verb) but now it is becoming yankeefied to DEfend.
However, there is no consistency and the rule you mention probably has so many exceptions as to be meaningless, even in American English. I haven't heard anyone, btw, Australian or American, say per-MIT for the noun, only for the verb. But it's all just a matter of usage over time. There is no inherently correct way. Language is very democratic - the majority rules eventually. English is dynamic not static, and dialectical not universal in pronunciation (or pronounciation as some people 'incorrectly' say it!).
