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While reading a book, I noticed prejudice was hyphenated to the next line in the following form: prej-udice. As I found it quite strange, I searched online for its syllables and apparently it had its syllables as prej-u-dice, so the book was not wrong about the hyphenation. But still, my heart strongly suggested that pre-ju-dice would be a more intuitive way to syllable the word.

Notice that the following words are partly similar but syllabled differently:

  • Conjugation(con-ju-ga-tion)
  • Perjury(per-ju-ry)

I wonder what makes prejudice so different from those words that it has j separated from u in the syllables?

As suggested in the comments, I'm adding the reference to the hyphenation in question:

  • The exact location is the 6th line from the bottom of page 176 of Justice (ISBN 978-0-374-53250-5);
  • Reference image
    The original link to Google Books seemed to only work in my country, so I'm posting the search result image instead.
hjjg200
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    In your heart do your pronounce it starting with “pree-“ or “predge”? I say “predge” ... – Jim May 06 '21 at 06:05
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    I say prĕ rather than prē but I'd never hyphenate it as prej-udice. Imagine having "prej-" at the end of a line and "udice" on the next. Really difficult to make sense of. It would be really helpful to say where you found this and how many other resources you checked. – Andrew Leach May 06 '21 at 07:12
  • @AndrewLeach, I see. I always thought the syllables matter when it comes to hyphenation. Anyways, the line is from the 6th line from the bottom of page 176 of Justice.

    https://books.google.com/books?id=SKEeHVwT5UMC&lpg=PA176&pg=PA176#v=onepage&q=involves%20no%20such%20prejudice&f=false

     – hjjg200 May 06 '21 at 08:00
  • Please add complete reference information to the question, rather than bury it in comments. – Andrew Leach May 06 '21 at 08:03
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    Of course, the actual text isn't available at your link. I'd guess it's just extremely poor printing (where a possible exception to a rule hasn't been taken into account). – Andrew Leach May 06 '21 at 08:13
  • @AndrewLeach Strange. It worked for me while I haven't purchased the book or anything. I posted the image instead. I appreciate your feedback. – hjjg200 May 06 '21 at 08:23
  • LaTeX uses prej-u-dice; Apparently Knuth's hyphenation algorithm is fully documented in his books (I thought the font suggested LaTeX, but the "j" isn't from Computer Modern) – Chris H May 06 '21 at 16:10
  • @ChrisH The font in the illustration is Eric Gill's Perpetua. – Andrew Leach May 06 '21 at 17:17
  • @Andrew thanks. once I zoomed in it obviously wasn't CM but by then I'd looked up the hyphenation pattern – Chris H May 06 '21 at 18:02
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    As a side note, prej- at the end of a line gives you a much better clue to what follows than pre-. As somebody who voices internally when reading, this is a definite bonus -- I don't have to backtrack and change my internal pronunciation from /priː/ to /prɛ/. – TonyK May 06 '21 at 22:03
  • who says splitting needs to follow syllable boundaries? https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/385/what-are-the-rules-for-splitting-words-at-the-end-of-a-line has a variety of rules of thumb in its answers more complicated than "splitting must be done on syllable boundaries" – Tristan May 07 '21 at 12:29
  • The words you compare with are not really similar, because there are two consonants between the first two syllables. So the first consontant is naturally in the first syllable, and the second consontant is in the second syllable. – Barmar May 07 '21 at 14:04

2 Answers2

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Prejudice is syllabified as /ˈprɛd͡ʒ.ə.dəs/ and not */ˈprɛ.d͡ʒə.dəs/ because the lax vowel /ɛ/ doesn't occur at the end of syllables in English and therefore it should have a coda—a consonant after it (see Maximal Onset Principle).

Also according to John Wells' syllabification, ‘consonants are syllabified with the more strongly stressed of two flanking syllables’. The first syllable in prejudice has primary stress on it, so the /d͡ʒ/ is syllabified with that syllable, giving /ˈprɛd͡ʒ.ə.dəs/.

Merriam-Webster and American Heritage Dictionary give:

prej·​u·​dice
prej·u·diced, prej·u·dic·ing, prej·u·dic·es

So yes, it should be hyphenated prej·​u·​dice.

Decapitated Soul
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    Should it be hyphenated that way as well? I would say etymology holds the trump card there. – Andrew Leach May 06 '21 at 07:13
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    @AndrewLeach If you let etymology hold the trump card w.r.t. hyphenation, then you get hyphenations like helico-/pter, photo-/graphy and thermo-/meter. – Rosie F May 06 '21 at 13:34
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    @RosieF I did say there, and it may be an exception which proves the rule; although your last two hyphenations don't seem bad to me. – Andrew Leach May 06 '21 at 13:43
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    "/ɛ/ doesn't occur at the end of syllables in English". "Meh" begs to differ :) – chepner May 06 '21 at 14:54
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    But you can't hyphenate "Meh" so that is irrelevant :) – alephzero May 06 '21 at 14:56
  • @chepner: Yeah ... I've mentioned that in the linked answer (“Maximal Onset Principle”). :P – Decapitated Soul May 06 '21 at 14:56
  • @chepner And besides, it's spelled with a silent h, so the point is moot – No Name May 06 '21 at 17:29
  • @NoName Well, yes. If the h weren't silent, it would conform to the "can't end in /ɛ/" rule. – chepner May 06 '21 at 17:33
  • " because the lax vowel /ɛ/ doesn't occur at the end of syllables" That's a bit circular. Also, the second vowel of "prejudice" is \u, although it can be reduced to \ə, and neither vowel works well at the beginning of a syllable. Putting \u\ at the beginning of a syllable almost always induces a yod. "Also according to John Wells' syllabification, ‘consonants are syllabified with the more strongly stressed of two flanking syllables" How it's pronounced is more important than what some guy says the syllabification should be. And M-W gives both syllabifications. – Acccumulation May 07 '21 at 02:12
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    @Acccumulation schwa appears in onset all the time. "a" is almost always just a schwa with no onset for instance – Tristan May 07 '21 at 12:27
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The first syllable is prej because the e is a short vowel and needs the j to close the syllable. If is did not have the j, the e would say long e.

Loretta Kelly
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