Nina & Suzette - Just for fun - Craig Cornish's Blog

T.V.F. Brogan issues a stern warning about the temptations of overly detailed scansion:

"Since meter is a system of binary oppositions in which syllables are either marked or unmarked (long or short; stressed or unstressed), a binary code is all that is necessary to transcribe it. . . . It is natural to want to enrich scansion with other kinds of analyses which capture more of the phonological and syntactic structure of the line . . . But all such efforts exceed the boundary of strict metrical analysis, moving into descriptions of linguistic rhythm, and thus serve to blur or dissolve the distinction between meter and rhythm. Strictly speaking, scansion marks which syllables are metrically prominent – i.e. ictus and nonictus – not how much. Scansions which take account of more levels of metrical degree than two, or intonation, or the timing of syllables are all guilty of overspecification!"

When I took Linguistics and Practical Logic in college it reminded me of trying to untangle a poorly stored string of mini Christmas lights with the end result being "Screw it!" and tossing them in favor of a new set. Brogan's quote might be compared to a Professor Irwin Corey double talk comic routine and can be more simply stated by saying that many could argue the point to infinity and end much more confused than when they started. Rhythm/meter needs to exist in some prose/poetry/music etc. but there can be much divergence of opinion as to how it is defined, frequently with opposing views both being correct. "Home home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play; where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day." Linguistic scansion makes it more easily remembered yet I was disillusioned to find that logically speaking, does "the skies are not cloudy all day" mean the sky is cloudless all day or just some of the day? Hmm, I think I need Nina to simplify this for me as well and then Suzette and I can confuse each other trying to tangle it once more - lol