Learn English – First or second syllable accent for “detail”

In standard English (and most dialects I can think of - in mine it does, anyway), many words have a feature where emphasis on the first syllable signifies a noun, while emphasis on the second syllable signifies a verb, such as in the words "record", "replay", "increase" and "permit" - this is a common feature of English as a whole, and it doesn't appear to be anything to do with regional variation.

In Linguistics, a word which is signified as a noun through having its first syllable emphasised (i.e., FInance) in order to convert it into a noun is known as an initial stress derived noun.

I am British (from Southwest rural) and I would only pronounce "finance" with emphasis on the second syllable if I were to use it as a verb, for example, "I'm going to finance this project". So this isn't a strictly British feature!

I hope this helps!

My first thought is that I would tend to use DE-tail as a noun and de-TAIL as a verb, usually in the past tense.

That's an irrelevant DE-tail.

She de-TAILED her problems for us at great length.

However, I don't see any backup for this in the dictionary, so it must be regional (or familial!) for me. In fact, the accent on the second syllable seems to be the preferred pronunciation--since it's listed first. (That's still the custom, right?)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/detail