#trochee

[metricalscansion]

x x / x x / x x / x /

Have u ev | er had sex | with a phar | oah ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

x x / x x x x / x /

put the | pussy | in a | scarmoph | ogoghs

first line is mainly-anapestic tetrameter, second line is a trochee ('pussy') preceded and followed by dibrachs, resolving into iambs for 'scarmophogoghs'

Have u ever had sex with a pharoah ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh put the pussy in a scarmophogoghs

[marvelous-mara-musings]

An Ending

This is dust: an end of time or start anew. Doorways open, doorways fasten- covens spellcast forming lives in dust to souls in dragons. Endless struggles bound betwixt and bound between; a darkling’s poetry neither stop nor starting, cycling dust until it Ends.

[trochaic-mutant-ninja-tetrameter]

🎶ADHD hates me! Cannot focus!🎵

[metricalscansion]

/ x x / x x / / / x

got this at | cvs | just one | dollar.

tetrameter: two dactyls, a spondee and a trochee

got this at cvs just one dollar.

[ourfag]

finally saw pacific rim after many years of hearing about pacific rim & all factors averaged out i'd call it ok. there is nonetheless a chance i will watch it several more times in the near future because big robot fighting big monster very cool. they say these days that in order to create a successful satire or deconstruction you have to thoroughly love and understand the subject of your commentary. my hope is that this does not extend to aus and crossovers because unfortunately i am already brainstorming designs for galleon bravo (you already know whose jaeger this is)

[metricalscansion]

x / x x / x / x / x / x

his pussy | was like | a What | aburg | er fryer

x / x / x x / / x / x

and brother | i was | the last | rat | in texas

pentameter (mostly iambs and amphibrachs)

his pussy was like a Whataburger frier. and brother. i was the last rat in texas

[creatediana]

"Ekphrasis on Rereading David Copperfield" - a poem written 12/22/2023

[perdvivly]

Compare:

“It is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven”

With

“Better to reign in hell than serve in heav’n”

[metricalscansion]

x / x / x / / x

A vole | is some | obscure | rodent

iambic tetrameter, ending with a trochee

[trochaic-mutant-ninja-tetrameter]

🎶Social media feed! Reblog heavy!🎵

[creatediana]

"Old Shakespeares" - a short rondel written 8/26/2023

[shinraelectricpowercom]

when people say that writing in iambic pentameter is hard i reflect on the vast width of experience in the world, because tonight I realized that half of the dialogue in this fic I've been writing is in iambs, presumably because I saw Richard II a week ago and have been thinking about it since

[trochaic-mutant-ninja-tetrameter]

🎶Dairy product mouthful! Jacob Andrews!🎵

[thethirdromana]

I realised this morning that We Didn't Start the Fire and the Major-General's song exist at opposite ends of the spectrum of widely-parodied songs.

I don't think I've ever heard a version of We Didn't Start the Fire that got the scansion right, or a version of the Major-General's song that got it wrong.

This probably says less about the songs themselves and more about the easy availability of iambs vs trochees in English.

[the-northern-continent]

Rhythm and Breath in Dragon Age: Inquisition

Inquisition plays around with a couple recurring rhythms:

iambic pentameter (dagger skill tree, Maryden)

trochaic tetrameter (Saga of Tyrdda Bright-Axe)

the cadence from the song Hallelujah (Solas)

Many folks have already written technical comparisons of these different rhythms, but I specifically wanted to talk about how they handle breath.

Without even paying attention to the word content of these rhythms, the breath patterns help set the mood. Are my breaths regularly spaced? Am I gulping for air? Am I breathing slowly and calmly?

As we go through the different rhythms, try reading them aloud to see where your breath lands.

Iambic Pentameter

Iambic pentameter is a five (penta-) foot meter, where each foot is an iamb. An iamb is a two-syllable “da-DUM” sound, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. So each line has 10 syllables total.

Here’s an example from the dagger skill tree, with the feet color-coded:

You leap through shadows to attack your foe

With deadly strikes that hit them from behind.

Before your target turns to face your blow,

You move to stealth, impossible to find.

If we read this aloud, we find that 10 syllables is a lot! There are very few mid-line commas, so we naturally want to breathe between lines. But each of those breaths needs to last for ten syllables. If we don’t want to pass out, we’re reading the lines a bit faster than we normally would.

The iambs add even more forward momentum. Since we need to save more breath for the second syllable in each pair, we hurry slightly faster over the unstressed syllables.

Because we keep repeating that same syllable count and stress pattern, the overall effect is one of speed and precision. This is a rogue rapidly making blow after blow after blow with their daggers, hitting every single time. This is Maryden rattling off each sentence with perfect poise and musical training. There’s no time here for thinking; no room for mistakes. The next line is going to be ten syllables too. And the next. And the next.

Trochaic Tetrameter

By contrast, the Saga of Tyrdda Bright-Axe only has 4 (tetra-) trochees (DUM-da) per line. On every other line, the final unstressed syllable is dropped (catalexis).

That’s a lot of jargon, let’s color code the feet:

Tell the tale of Tyrdda Bright-Axe

mountain maker, spirit’s bride:

Free, her people, forged in fastness

made in mountains, hardy hide.

This is a classic meter, often found in nursery rhymes and folk songs. Because there’s only 8 syllables per line (plus lots of mid-line commas), we can read each line at a casual pace, without speeding up. The catalexis adds extra emphasis to the rhyming lines, since we get to the last (7th) syllable with more breath to spend. And even within each foot, we don’t have to manage our breath as much, because the stressed syllable comes first.

This creates a comfortable rhythm that lends itself to memorization and recitation. We can easily imagine this saga being passed down beside a campfire.

Hallelujah

Since the Hallelujah cadence comes from music rather than poetry, it has an additional kind of stress, the mid-measure secondary stress.*

We don’t exactly have feet, but we can color code each measure:

I lay in dark and dreaming sleep

while countless wars and ages passed.

I woke still weak a year before I joined you.

For the first two lines, each measure is 4 syllables long, so we get 8 syllables in each line, similar to the Tyrdda poem. If we read it aloud, it’s easy to do it slowly and thoughtfully. The secondary, quieter stresses also create an echoing effect, which emphasizes that Solas is thinking about the past.

Then the last line goes absolutely bananas. It abandons the unstressed-stressed repetition and gets much longer, flying up to 11 syllables — even longer than the 10-syllable lines in iambic pentameter.

Additionally, Solas tends to glue the first two lines together, which is SIXTEEN syllables, so they sound closer to an octameter** than the tetrameter(ish) sound of the original song.

The overall effect is of someone trying to be measured and thoughtful, but partway through he gets hit with nostalgia and the lines spill out in a long breathless rush. Bro has to speak quietly so he doesn’t totally run out of air.

*Music theory sidebar: Leonard Cohen’s original version is in 12/8 time, so the secondary stress isn’t as prominent. It shows up in one or two verses, but not all. A lot of the subsequent covers, including k.d. lang’s, sound more like 6/8. That means every measure has a 2-beat count: 1-2-3 4-5-6. I think the 6/8 version fits Solas’ speech pattern a bit more. But he’s not singing, and secondary stresses are harder to place. Syllables don’t have to align 1:1 with melody notes (in fact, in Hallelujah there are several places where the syllable alignment changes from verse to verse). So someone else could easily hear a slightly different stress pattern.

**This implies a cursed version of Solas where the last line is omitted and he’s actually syncing his speech to Modern Major-General.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Some Poetry Terminology

Alliteration. Close repetition of consonant sounds, especially initial consonant sounds.

Anapest. Foot consisting of 2 unstressed syllables followed by a stress.

Assonance. Close repetition of vowel sounds.

Blank verse. Unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Caesura. A deliberate rhetorical, grammatical, or rhythmic pause, break, cut, turn, division, or pivot in poetry.

Chapbook. A small book of about 24-50 pages.

Consonance. Close repetition of consonant sounds--anywhere within the words.

Couplet. Stanza of 2 lines; often, a pair of rhymed lines.

Dactyl. Foot consisting of a stress followed by 2 unstressed syllables.

Decasyllable. Line consisting of 10 syllables.

Enjambment. Continuation of sense and rhythmic movement from one line to the next; also called a "run-on" line.

Envoi. A brief ending (usually to a ballade or sestina) no more than 4 lines long; summary.

Epigraph. A short verse, note, or quotation that appears at the beginning of a poem or section; usually presents an idea or theme on which the poem elaborates, or contributes background information not reflected in the poem itself.

Foot. Unit of measure in a metrical line of poetry.

Galleys. First typeset version of a poem, magazine, and/or book/chapbook.

Hendecasyllable. Line consisting of 11 syllables.

Hexameter. Line consisting of 6 metrical feet.

Honorarium. A token payment for published work.

Iamb. Foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stress.

Line. Basic unit of a poem; measured in feet if metrical.

Meter. The rhythmic measure of a line.

Octave. Stanza of 8 lines.

Octosyllable. Line consisting of 8 syllables.

Pentameter. Line consisting of 5 metrical feet. For instance, iambic pentameter equals 10 syllables (5 unstressed, 5 stressed).

Quatrain. Stanza of 4 lines.

Quintain. Stanza of 5 lines.

Refrain. A repeated line within a poem, similar to the chorus of a song.

Rhyme. Words that sound alike, especially words that end in the same sound.

Rhythm. The beat and movement of language (rise and fall, repetition and variation, change of pitch, mix of syllables, melody of words).

Septet. Stanza of 7 lines.

Sestet. Stanza of 6 lines.

Spondee. Foot consisting of 2 stressed syllables.

Stanza. Group of lines making up a single unit; like a paragraph in prose.

Strophe. Often used to mean "stanza"; also a stanza of irregular line lengths.

Tercet. Stanza or poem of 3 lines.

Tetrameter. Line consisting of 4 metrical feet.

Trochee. Foot consisting of a stress followed by an unstressed syllable.

Source ⚜ More: Word Lists ⚜ References for Poets