The Principles of English Verse

An excerpt from Chapter I. Rhythm and Metre If you pronounce these two sentences: "She told me she was sixteen years of age," and "She said her age was just sixteen," you will almost certainly pronounce "sixteen" with the accent on "six" in the first case and on "-teen" in the second. So when you say "That judgment was unjust," you put a marked accent on the final syllable of the adjective, but when you speak of "the parable of the unjust steward," you probably give its two syllables nearly...