Digest

The word digest can be pronounced in two different ways, depending on the way it is used - its word class.

• The verb 'to digest' has the stress on the second syllable, 'di-JEST' (IPA: /daɪ (or dɪ) 'dʒɛst/ ). It means primarily 'to process food in the stomach, etc, in order to obtain the benefit of it' (a natural process, common to all animals); there are figurative meanings about knowledge and so on. When Francis Bacon said "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested" ('Of Studies', Essays, Project Gutenberg edition, http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/ebacn10.txt, accessed 26/08/09), he was using digestion as a metaphor for the process of processing mental input in the mind, likening it to processing food in the stomach.
• The noun 'a digest' has the stress on the first syllable: 'DIE-jest', IPA: /'daɪ dʒɛst/. It is the result of study, in that it is the name for a publication which consists of the processed material (usually reduced in size and arranged) of other publications. This can be a book, such as the Digests of statistics in government departments, and various Digests of the laws in a particular field; or a journal whose purpose is to present subscribers with summaries of the many articles printed in their fields, of which 20 are listed in Hull University Library's catalogue of electronic journals. One of the best-known non-academic journals in the Englsdi-speaking world is Reader's Digest, a monthly compilation of 'condensed' articles from publications all over the world.
  • Lawyers commonly use a Digest - "An abstract, or collection in condensed form, of some body of law, systematically arranged" (OED), and specifically The Digest (or 'Pandects' - Latin Digesta seu Pandectae) compiled under the Emperor Justinian (483-565) between 529 and 534 CE. This codifies the laws enacted by the first emperors, and is part of Justinian's reforms of Roman civil laws.

Note

This pattern of shifting stress in words that look identical but belong to two separate word classes is quite common in English.

Quirk (1985) (Appendix I.56 B) describes the most common: "When verbs of two syllables are converted into nouns, the stress is sometimes shifted from the second to the first syllable. The first syllable, typically a Latin prefix, often has a reduced vowel /ə/ in the verb but a full vowel in the noun: He was con-VICT-ed (IPA: /kən ˈvɪkt ɪd/) of theft, and so became a CON vict (IPA: /ˈkɒn vɪkt/)" [AWE's rendition of IPA].

There follows a list of some 57 "words having end-stress as verbs but initial stress as nouns in Br[itish] E[nglish]." Note that "in Am[erican] E[nglish], many have initial stress as verbs also". Quirk's list is the foundation of AWE's category:shift of stress. Additions have been made from, amongst others, Fowler, 1926-1996.