To begin with, I am upon a new fangled hand-held thing that confuses me, so please ignore any typo's etc, due to the incesent programing that tries to anticipate my wordage.

The other day, Tuesday I believe, I was enjoying a culinary delight within our local gab spot, when I happend to note the over head monitor. The tintalating questons that were posted caught my attention. Namely one in particular; "What three months in the year have only one syllable?"

Needess to say, I could think of only two: May and June. Thus, when the answer revealed the third to be that of March, I was left utterly confused.

And now to explain, as well as pose my question unto our poobah's and other.

I have always pronounced "March" as two syllables. Mar Ch. Yet looking at sites such as Merrium-Websters or my dictionary, New World Dictionay, they show "March" as a single syllable.
Okay, that is odd, I think. So, next I checked to make sure that I understood just what a syllable was. According to what I read, a syllable is denoted by a vowel, and not the actual beat to stress of the actual letters of a word. By this time my mind began to self implode.

My two part question is this:

1.) Is March a one to two syllable word?
2.) If one, how in the, phonetic verse, does a person propperly pronounce it with out giving a two beat or stress upon the two main sections?

Arg!!!!

Thank you for the indulgence and my lack of links. (Growls at her Pandigital)

I am having difficulty imagining March pronounced with more than one syllable. Are you adding a schwa in between the r and the ch?

perhaps a schwa after the ch?

there ain't no schwas in March (to my ear), even if you march to the beat of a different drum.

You can lead a horse to water
But u can't make him drink,
U can lead a human by the nose
But you can't make him think
I may be lost sometimes
But i don't follow anyone
I'll always march to the beat
The beat of a different drum
-Lower Class Brats

Okay, I now have access to my main computer so this should prove slightly easier.

No zmjezhd, I do not place any extra sounds, such as "adding a schwa in between the r and the ch".
Nor that of "a schwa after the ch" as suggested by Buffallo.

May hap if I were to make a .wav file and post it; then it could be heard on how I pronounce "March". I will see about doing this and posting tomorrow.

Quite simply, though, I pronounce it as Mar, as in Mark, with out the K or Cah sound on the end, then stress the Ch; as in the first part of Choose.
The “M” being hard, “ar” soft, ending with “Ch” as hard again.

*shrugs*
Then again, maybe all of this is just the delusions of a warped mind, made mushy by to much stress and receptors exploding willynilly.

I appreciate the posts so far though.

I can understand the idea of the "ch" sounding like a second syllable. it has a weight of its own (at least the way I pronounce it). those big chunky consonants sometimes want to stand on their own.

but I wouldn't have thought of it as a separate syllable.

That kinda counts as one syllable in English.

So in other words, it is, within the English lexicon, actually the "ar " sound in March that is deemed the syllabic aspect. Thus rendering the two distinct sounds as just consonates and dialect?

perhaps a schwa after the ch?

What, you mean s/he talks like Chico Marx?

Actually they're all one syllable:

Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr (well, OK, maybe not this one)
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec

Even I say March as one syllable (though I can see the occasional Mar-arch as making it two). The only thing I can think of (welcome back, by the way, she said streaming consciousness) is that perhaps you may actually be saying something like Mar-chuh, crisply rounding off the ch sound? I kind of swallow the uh sound, though I can't get rid of it altogether. How do you say arch?

Perhaps it's a regional thing, like the teacher from New York who had me thinking there was a car called a Porscher?

That would be the intrusive non-rhotic R. It's commonly pronounced /Porsh/ in English but the German pronunciation is more like /Porshuh/.

March is my birth month...and I think its one syllable.
The 'ch' is soft and just quietly flows from the 'mar' ending the word.

Though I had to smile @ Faldage's "all months are one syllable"

Hmm, you are correct, listening to my pronunciation, there is a chuh sound placed at the end. And I learn yet again.

Thank you for the return welcome.


Completely agreed, for he brought a laugh when one was needed. Thank you Faldage.

I now have the answers I sought, and being all the better for the inquiry there in.

I am very grateful for the support,

Darn, and Apr is my birth month. I want a single syllable
like everyone else.

The definition of "syllable" is tricky, but in English a syllable consists of a vowel sound and any surrounding consonants. "March" contains 1 vowel sound, so it has 1 syllable.

whereas, e.g., Porsche is arguably one or two sylLAbles, depending on if you think the e is silent or if you think it's a schwa. (or depending on what language you're trying to speak : )

I think it has much to do with Two different sounds to make the one complete sound. Mar and ch.

So, how many syllables is strengths?

1.67, approx.

Still just 1 vowel sound. Same with "strengths"

True, but it is one word which really makes it difficult when dealing with poetic meter.
Though as can be seen by tsuwm's post, not impossible.

So, how many syllables is strengths?

I'd say one. Though not all syllables are the same length, especially in languages where vocalic phonemes can differ by length (as in Sanskrit, Latin, Classical Greek, German, etc.). There's a difference between syllables and morae.

What a horrible time for this interesting topic to have come up! I do not have the time or leisure for this, but I cannot resist.

This is how I parse tsu-s's rhyme below:
'You can 'lead a 'horse to 'water 8
But u 'can't 'make him 'drink, 6
'U can 'lead a 'human 'by the 'nose 9
But you 'can't 'make him 'think 6
I 'may be 'lost some'times 5
But 'i don't 'follow 'any'one 8
I'll 'always 'march 'to the 'beat 7
The 'beat of a 'different 'drum 8
-Lower Class Brats

There does not seem consistency in the beat, but the rhyme still works for me because of I think the rhyming, but mostly because it is consistently iambic throughout, except for the last two lines - was that what you meant by march being problematic? But I think the inconsistency in rhythm of the last two lines works. They emulate the rat a tat. I love the dactyl of the last line.

In my op, the worst word meter wise is 'every' - HOG!

syllables and morae.

Yeah, thats what I was trying to get at I didn't know the technical term.

Is morae a syllable differentiated by its length? Eastern poetry has that. I am still struggling to learn it. Can't be learnt on line. What is a strength?

In my op, the worst word meter wise is 'every' Why? It's just two syllables, ev and ree.
I think I have seen it as ev'ry, to denote this.

I thought it is denoted as ev'ry to indicate the middle schwa has been dropped. In normal speech also I pronounce it with a slight schwa in the middle. However, I just looked it up on google, and it says most dictionaries list it as two syllables. So I don't know. I have always thought it to be three - since it has 3 vowels.

Is morae a syllable differentiated by its length? Eastern poetry has that. I am still struggling to learn it. Can't be learnt on line.

You can start at Wikipedia (link). What is a strength?

I think Faldo meant the word strengths.

The Japanese poetic form haiku is said, in English, to have three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, respectively. Thinking of these as we think of syllables can lead to some very clunky poetry. The Japanese are actually counting morae. Where the word haiku is thought of as having two syllables in English it has three morae in Japanese, ha i ku. A mora in Japanese is a V, a CV, or the phoneme /n/, although the /n/ can be the C in a CV combination.