Today’s Bizarro brings us the percussion section of a marching band, a section composed entirely of Grim Reapers — yes, Reaper percussion, portmanteaued to Reapercussion:
Wayno’s title: “Halftime Dirge” — since they’re marching on a (US) football field (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are only 2 in this strip — see this Page)
Lexical matters. From NOAD:
noun percussion: 1 musical instruments played by striking with the hand or with a handheld or pedal-operated stick or beater, or by shaking, including drums, cymbals, xylophones, gongs, bells, and rattles … ORIGIN late Middle English: from Latin percussio(n-), from the verb percutere ‘to strike forcibly’
Marching bands have percussion sections most often limited to bass drums, snare drums, and cymbals, as in the cartoon.
Now, Reaper percussion is a N + N compound, so it has the primary accent on its first element (and a secondary accent on the second):
Réaper percùssion
The portmanteau Reapercussion would maintain that accent pattern:
Réapercùssion
Not to be confused with the
noun repercussion: 1 (usually repercussions) an unintended consequence occurring some time after an event or action, especially an unwelcome one: the move would have grave repercussions for the entire region … [AMZ: a metaphorical striking back]
The noun repercussion is (derivational) prefix + stem, a (secondary) accented repetitive prefix re– combined with the primary accented noun percussion:
rèpercússion
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