Syllable Count

a syllable is defined as: "an uninterrupted segment of speech consisting of a center of relatively great sonority with or without one or more accompanying sounds of relatively less sonority" ....if that made no sense to me, you probably didn't understand it either. I looked up sonority, and I got: "the condition or quality of being resonant" so I looked up resonant, and I get: "resounding or echoing, as sounds"

So, basically, a syllable is a single, goo, strong sound with some other kinda wimpy sounds.

Take "thwart" for example. The "a" is very strong, but the "thw" and "rt" are less stressed and more "on the sidelines" as far as letters go.

Now, let's take "sidelines." sIdelInes. Two strong centers, two syllables.