Invert

The pronunciation of the word invert varies according to word class.

• The adjective invert has the stress on the first syllable: 'IN-vert', IPA: /'ɪnv ɛ^rt/. This is mostly a technical term in Chemistry.
• The noun 'an invert' also has the stress on the first syllable: 'IN-vert', IPA: /'ɪnv ɛ^rt/. This is also a technical term, used in Engineering (to mean an 'upturned arch') and Psychology, where it is no longer a common term, to mean 'a [usually male] homosexual'. "The inverts (a word preferred by homosexuals to perverts) attempt to win converts" (R. Reisner (1974) Graffiti viii. 115, cited in OED.
• The verb 'to invert' has the stress on the second syllable: 'in-VERT', IPA: /ɪnv 'ɛ^rt/. This is the commonest invert among the three word classes. Its general meaning is 'to turn upside down', or 'to change the relative position of'; it has further technical senses in such subjects as Music, Information Technology and Mathematics. Rarely, it can mean 'to turn inwards', a meaning to be found in Medicine, and which contributed to the early use in Psychology to mean 'having homosexual feelings', as in "Sexual inversion - that is, the turning-in of the sex instinct towards individuals of the same sex" (Godfrey, J. A. (1901) Sci. Sex v. 206, cited in OED).
• The -ed participle inverted, whose general meaning is 'turned around', 'turned upside-down', 'turned over', 'reversed' etc., has various uses, some technical. Some of these which may be of use to readers of AWE are:
  • in general use, although in decline, an inverted snob is a person who judges people and institutions by inappropriate criteia, like any other snob - but by criteria the opposite of the usual social snobberies.
  • in Music, an inverted chord is one in which the lowest note is no longer the root of the chord - for example, a C Major chord (the noteds C, E and G, in that order as a root chord) has a 'first inversion' of E - G - C, and a 'second inversion' of G - C - E.
  • in linguistic phonetics, certain consonants realized with the tip of the tongue 'inverted' (turned back) against the hard palate, which are also known as retroflex (AWE's preferred term), 'cacuminal', 'coronal', 'domal' or 'cerebral', such as the '-r-' characteristic of languages and accents of English spoken in the Indian peninsula.
  • in punctuation, see AWE's article on the Inverted comma
  • in prosody, inverted foot is an alternative name for the reversed foot, q.v.. )
    • The adjective has very different meanings in the fields of anatomy, physiology and medicine, where it refers to some formations of the structure at the ends of limbs - lower limbs in the case of humans.)
  • in Mathematics, related subjects and in Logic, inverted operations are those which, being the reverse of one operation (A), will produce the starting-point of A when applied to its results
  • in Chemistry and cookery, inverted sugar (also 'an 'invert sugar') is valued for its sweetness and ability to prevent crystals forming in preparations of ordinary sugar. It is a mixture of glucose and fructose produced by hydrolysis of sucrose, and is an example of the chemical process of inversion - altering the optical polarity, or light-rotating property, of a molecule.

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.