[Matt Q]

Meanwhile, back to the poem.

My reading is that the N has returned to his childhood and to the street he lived on as a child. On this street, inside the houses are blinking fairy-lights and blinking LCD screens. Now, "fairy lights" gives me a clear enough image, but what, I wonder are the LCD screens. Are they TVs? Or are they kids with handheld video games. If they're TVs, the first flat screen TV came out in the late 90s, so if everyone has one this puts us somewhere in the latter half of the 2000s or later, which makes the N pretty young, if this is childhood. On the other hand the first Gameboy came our in 1989. So maybe these are the screens, and all the kids have them?

Hmm, on the other hand I guess it's possible that he's literally visiting the street, that he's in the present and seeing it as it is now, when everyone has a flat screen TV?

Anyway, if you could be more specific about what sort of screens these are, the image would be clearer (for me at least), I'd have more of a sense of whether I was in the past or present -- and in doing so maybe that would give you a way around the issues in S3L1?

Matt

[Carl Copeland]

Whoa, I feel like I should read a few books before responding, but here goes nothing:

Originally Posted by Matt Q

The above doesn't make a lot of sense to me. As I said above, we may be using the word "stress" differently. You seem to be using in two different ways. "Natural stress" vs "metrical stress" (or "natural reading" vs "metrical reading"). FWIW, I think I'm reading "naturally", but welcome a definition of the two so I can check.

Ok, my ideal natural readers stress metrical verse as they would non-met or even prose. If they’re attentive, they may hear a meter asserting itself at times and then fading out again. I think that’s the way I was told to read poetry at home and in school, but I never had the discipline. My ideal metrical readers (or chanters) pick up on a strong underlying meter and groove to the beat—anticipate and take pleasure in the regularity, even to the point of fudging a little on the normal stressing of some words.

Here’s a crude test using that same line from Clement Moore (But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer). When you’re reading the poem, do you hear this as regular anapestic tetrameter, as I do, or as anapest–anapest–iamb–trochee–trochee and then, as a critic, analyze the clash between that and the underlying meter? (I’m even willing to re-stress “reindeer” a little to fit the meter, but that’s a strain even for me.)

Again, I realize there’s no ideal natural or metrical reader. We all find our own subtle compromises between the two extremes as we go along.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

Maybe it's useful to make a distinction between absolute stress and relative stress. … So maybe that's what you mean by natural?

No, I can’t say much about absolute stress, because I don’t have the instruments to measure it, and the variations in speech are too wide. As you say, relative stress is what matters in meter and in language generally (creating the difference in meaning between “ENG|lish teach|er” and “ENG|lish TEACH|er”).

Originally Posted by Matt Q

I call these both iambs because in both cases the second syllable has a noticeably stronger stress than the first -- within each foot the stress falls on the second syllable of each. So, marked up this way, we'd get "a PARK|ing LOT".

And these stress patterns are real: they're not read in. The reader actually hears the rising-falling pattern. It's natural. The reader doesn't have be educated in metre and then "read in" a "metrical" stress, which I think you're suggesting.

Here I think we disagree. In an iambic context, I too would read “a parking lot” as two iambs, but that’s because I’m grooving to the beat and expect those iambs to be there. In an anapestic context and in everyday speech, I’d give “lot” little or no stress. Otherwise, there’d be no difference between the two uses of “parking lot” in this little dialogue: “A: I parked in the parking lot. B: In the parking what? A: The parking lot.” A rather silly example, but such distinctions can be significant.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

Or maybe we're just using different language and that's why there appears to be a division?

Maybe it would be clearer if I contrasted stress with beat or ictus, but I went back to see if I could insert one of those in my previous comments and found it would take too much rewriting.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

most of us, I'm guessing are self-taught.

Even “self-taught” sounds too formal for the haphazard way I’ve picked things up.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

Or is it that there should only be one syllable that you're going to call stressed, and its the strongest one? You only want to mark the "primary" stresses and not the secondary ones?

I’m not really prepared to discuss secondary stresses, but I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that they play no role in distinctions of meaning. “ENG|lish teach|er” and “ENG|lish TEACH|er” don’t vary in meaning depending on whether “teach” is level 1, 2, 3 or 4. For this purpose, relative stress is a binary distinction: stressed or unstressed.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

if I apply my own conventions to “ENG|lish teach|er”, I'd say it equates "teach" with "er and "lish", which is an important difference to obscure. I'd say that "teach" is now shown as carrying no stress, as not a "beat", and also that the markup says that "lish teach" isn't an iamb -- all of which I'd disagree with.

It may obscure a small difference in stress, but conveys the more important binary distinction of meaning. That’s in ordinary speech, though. In my “metrical reading” (with “lish teach” as an iamb), that difference is lost, which is a point in favor of “natural reading.”

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Matt Q

My reading is that the N has returned to his childhood and to the street he lived on as a child. On this street, inside the houses are blinking fairy-lights and blinking LCD screens. Now, "fairy lights" gives me a clear enough image, but what, I wonder are the LCD screens. Are they TVs? Or are they kids with handheld video games. If they're TVs, the first flat screen TV came out in the late 90s, so if everyone has one this puts us somewhere in the latter half of the 2000s or later, which makes the N pretty young, if this is childhood. … Anyway, if you could be more specific about what sort of screens these are, the image would be clearer (for me at least), I'd have more of a sense of whether I was in the past or present -- and in doing so maybe that would give you a way around the issues in S3L1?

Excellent. I hadn’t thought about Gameboys (not my bailiwick), but I did wonder if my conflation of two distinct time periods would be problematic. The imagined muggers and kidnappers date roughly to the 1970s. The LCD screens obviously came later. I considered “The TV screens” as a solution, but, as I told Alexandra, the articles in “the screens” and “the houses” then start to sound like filler. “Lit TV” would suit me, but it’s not a natural anapest, and she didn’t think it was an improvement metrically.

Thanks, Matt. A savvy comment that gives me further impetus to tinker with this line.

[Matt Q]

Originally Posted by Carl Copeland

No, I can’t say much about absolute stress, because I don’t have the instruments to measure it, and the variations in speech are too wide. As you say, relative stress is what matters in meter and in language generally (creating the difference in meaning between “ENG|lish teach|er” and “ENG|lish TEACH|er”).

So we're agreeing on the words "relative stress", but we seem to have quite different ideas of what that means in practice.

If you're using relative stress -- at least as I've defined that above -- then surely you have to scan "English teacher" as "ENG|lish TEACH|er”? That's how scansion works with relative stresses. Or I've been deeply mistaken all these years.

Here's a quote, from here (italics in the original).

The fundamental fact about meter is that it is a binary system. Meter does not concern itself with the absolute measurement of stress (as would, for example, a linguist trying to precisely record the individual performance of a poem). Meter concerns itself only with relative stress. Does this syllable receive more or less stress than the syllables on either side of it? To answer yes and mark a syllable as stressed does not mean that you hear all metrically stressed syllables as equally stressed.

If we follow those instructions (which admittedly may be a little oversimplified), we mark "ENG| lish TEACH|er". Even if "ENG" takes more stress than "TEACH". Note that this has nothing to do with whether we're a natural or a metrical reader, as you define these terms.

So, if you're not using relative stress (and I don't think you are), then what system are you using? Ultimately all syllables carry some degree of stress. Some quite a lot, some very little, some in between. What makes you decide to mark one as stressed and another not? What are your criteria? I hope I've explained what I'm doing, but I'm not really following your system.

Are we at least agreed that the stress decreases from "Eng" to "lish", then increases from "lish" to "teach" and then decreases again -- even in prose and natural speech? Do we agree on that much? If we do, then following what I understand to be the conventions of marking up relative stresses, we'd indicate this by ""ENG|lish TEACH|er” --- not "ENG|lish teach|er". Whatever you want to denote by "ENGlish teacher" it doesn't seem to be the pattern of relative stresses.

(FWIW, I also don't understand why it's so important to you to be able to represent a difference between “English teacher” and “English teacher”. In terms of relative stresses, at least, the two aren't different -- both have the same sequence of rises and falls even if the absolute stress on "TEACH" differs -- so they don't need a different notation if what we're marking are relative stresses.)

Here I think we disagree. In an iambic context, I too would read “a parking lot” as two iambs, but that’s because I’m grooving to the beat and expect those iambs to be there. In an anapestic context and in everyday speech, I’d give “lot” little or no stress. Otherwise, there’d be no difference between the two uses of “parking lot” in this little dialogue: “A: I parked in the parking lot. B: In the parking what? A: The parking lot.” A rather silly example, but such distinctions can be significant.

I don't think I hear a pattern of alternating stresses in "the parking lot" (i.e. "the PARKing LOT") because I'm "grooving to the beat". I hear it here, with the phrase in isolation, no beat to help me. Again, I'd say that whether in natural speech or when reading prose or a sonnet in iambic pentameter, the stress increases from "the" to "park", then decreases from "park" to "ing", then increases from "ing" to "lot". You might want to mark that up differently to me, but you do hear that pattern, right?

Again, this isn't a difference between how a "natural reader" and a "metrical reader" says it. It's just about how to denote the pattern produced by rising and falling stresses.

I’m not really prepared to discuss secondary stresses, but I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that they play no role in distinctions of meaning. “ENG|lish teach|er” and “ENG|lish TEACH|er” don’t vary in meaning depending on whether “teach” is level 1, 2, 3 or 4. For this purpose, relative stress is a binary distinction: stressed or unstressed.

It may obscure a small difference in stress, but conveys the more important binary distinction of meaning. That’s in ordinary speech, though. In my “metrical reading” (with “lish teach” as an iamb), that difference is lost, which is a point in favor of “natural reading.”

I get bit lost with all this talk of meaning. What does meaning have to do with anything? We're marking rhythms produced patterns of rising and falling stress. We're not trying to mark up "distinctions in meaning". Why do you want to be able to communicate meaning with your scansion? That's not what it's for, as far as I understand it.

Anyway ... like I said, I think we may be be speaking different languages. Mine, of course, is the right one

Matt

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Matt Q

So we're agreeing on the words "relative stress", but we seem to have quite different ideas of what that means in practice.

If you're using relative stress -- at least as I've defined that above -- then surely you have to scan "English teacher" as "ENG|lish TEACH|er”? That's how scansion works with relative stresses.

Sure, if I were scanning it as iambic verse—marking or noting the beats—I’d do it just that way. And if I were scanning “LCD” in anapestic verse, I’d get an anapest. That’s how I scan and how I prefer to read. What you and others are doing is reading “LCD screens” as seems natural to you, regardless of the surrounding meter—which is a valid approach and what I’m calling “natural reading.” I can be unhappy with your natural reading, but I can’t argue, because how you hear it is how it is for you.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

So, if you're not using relative stress (and I don't think you are), then what system are you using? Ultimately all syllables carry some degree of stress. Some quite a lot, some very little, some in between. What makes you decide to mark one as stressed and another not? What are your criteria? I hope I've explained what I'm doing, but I'm not really following your system.

I have no system. It just seems clear to me that we often stress words and phrases one way in conversation and another in verse and that the two levels interact. You may lean toward a conversational style of reading (as I was taught), while I lean toward a groove-to-the-beat reading, and that’s what I’ve been calling natural and metrical reading.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

Are we at least agreed that the stress decreases from "Eng" to "lish", then increases from "lish" to "teach" and then decreases again -- even in prose and natural speech? Do we agree on that much?

I doubt it, but let me answer with another question: do we agree about the difference in meaning? In natural speech, I’d say “ENG|lish teach|er” if she taught English and “ENG|lish TEACH|er” if she was a teacher with an British passport. “Teach” may get a little more stress than the syllables around it even in the first case, but it has to be relatively unstressed in the noun phrase as a whole to support the difference in meaning.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

I don't think I hear a pattern of alternating stresses in "the parking lot" (i.e. "the PARKing LOT") because I'm "grooving to the beat". I hear it here, with the phrase in isolation, no beat to help me. Again, I'd say that whether in natural speech or when reading prose or a sonnet in iambic pentameter, the stress increases from "the" to "park", then decreases from "park" to "ing", then increases from "ing" to "lot". You might want to mark that up differently to me, but you do hear that pattern, right?

“Parking lot” is a compound noun that’s stressed on the first syllable in natural speech. A slight secondary stress on “lot” is fine but irrelevant to the meaning, which is what speech is normally trying to get across. What matters is that “lot” is relatively unstressed within the compound noun. The difference in meaning between stressed and unstressed “lot” is pretty trivial in this case, but it can be important in others.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

What does meaning have to do with anything? We're marking rhythms produced patterns of rising and falling stress. We're not trying to mark up "distinctions in meaning". Why do you want to be able to communicate meaning with your scansion? That's not what it's for, as far as I understand it.

I doubt that scansion can be divorced from meaning, but my point is only that there are two distinct levels of stressing involved in verse. Attridge, whom I haven’t studied, notes natural stress above the line and metrical stress below so that the two can be compared and contrasted. If I were reading his “score” for an audience, I’d follow the lower notation, while the rest of you, I suppose, would stay closer to the upper.

[Carl Copeland]

I’m trying out “Lit TV” in place of “LCD.” It’s not a natural anapest, but at least I don’t think anyone will stress “screens” in “TV screens,” so the second foot should be a clear anapest and not tangle up the rest of the line. It also clears up Matt’s well-noted chronology problem.

[Alexandra Baez]

I suppose the distinction would be a sensed lack at the start of each such line, but I don’t get that from “The Night before Christmas.” I don’t even notice the shift from headed to headless and back again unless I look for it. So for me, in this case at least, it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other.

I think that one does grasp such shifts, though, if only subconsciously. But also, I'm going by the (to me very compelling) philosophy that when there are two technically legitimate choices of how to scan a line, one should go with the scansion that matches the prevailing meter. This acknowledges how the piece fits into the whole in a reader's perception and is what I meant by "context."

Sure, why not, but with several caveats: 1) I don’t see that as any less irregular;

It's less irregular in that it keeps to the triple foot precedent that's already been set by the poem.

2) I prefer to treat “tiny” and “reindeer” as the natural trochees they are, though one Spherean thought I was out of my mind to suggest that the stressing of individual words could play a part in identifying the meter;

Yeah, think that when it comes to scansion, all things being equal, one should resist the temptation to view individual elements of a line as discrete, although I have a tendency to do that myself. In this case, I do see a legitimate temptation to view these as double feet, though, because "eight tiny reindeer" does considerably slow down the pace that had been established by the poem.

3) there’s a school of prosody that says English meter can be adequately described in terms of iamb, trochee, anapest, dactyl and double iamb, with no need for amphimacers, antibacchuses, tertius paeons and the like. I reserve judgment on the latter, by the way.

If amphimacers and antibacchiuses aren't needed, then why would anapests and dactyls be? If tertius paeons aren't needed, why would double iambs be? Aren't all of these feet acknowledging a particular reading speed for each syllable? I.e., e.g., the three-syllable anapest is supposed to be read in the same amount of time as the two-syllable iamb.

I’d argue that the surrounding anapestic meter, established in the preceding four lines, tells you to de-stress “screens,” which you say you naturally want to do anyway. If you do, you’ll get an anapestic second foot, and then, as I told Matt, you can have an amphibrachic “LCD” if you like. I don’t think it spoils things too much.

Okay, I'm lost here as to what you're referring to here. This has gotten complex!

Anyway, I don’t mean to be defensive—I’ll fix this line if I can think of something—but meanwhile, I’m enjoying being puzzled by all the controversy.

I think that your new fix creates a considerably bigger problem than an extra "the" at the start of this line would. But good catch on Matt's part about the asynchronicity of the LCD screens. My inner Luddite had blithely overlooked this!

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by A. Baez

If amphimacers and antibacchiuses aren't needed, then why would anapests and dactyls be? If tertius paeons aren't needed, why would double iambs be?

I think the idea is economy of description. Why use several dozen exotic terms invented by the ancients for a very different kind of verse when five cover the waterfront in English? I’m actually fond of the amphibrach, but several venerable Sphereans advised me that it’s unnecessary in English scansion.

Originally Posted by A. Baez

Okay, I'm lost here as to what you're referring to here. This has gotten complex!

It’s really just your philosophy: “when there are two technically legitimate choices of how to scan a line, one should go with the scansion that matches the prevailing meter.” The prevailing meter says that “LCD” (or “Lit TV”) should be an anapest and the next syllable, “screens,” should be unstressed. That’s the metrical reading, and a natural reading should also de-stress “screens,” as you said you want to do.

Originally Posted by A. Baez

I think that your new fix creates a considerably bigger problem than an extra "the" at the start of this line would.

It’s ok if you want “Lit TV” to be an amphimacer or whatever. I think the line works metrically as long as “screens” is unstressed, and I certainly hope no one will read “Lit TV screens” as a dispondee or second epitrite!

[Matt Q]

Hi Carl,

In terms of our discussion of metre, I think we're maybe still talking at cross-purposes here. To spare the rest of the board, I'll PM you the next instalment of our discussion. Or to spare both of us, maybe I won't even do that

In terms of your revision, no I don't that that really improves matters. Forgetting about the metre for a moment, sacrilegious though that may be on this thread, I don't think "lit TV screens" is doing much. It doesn't resolve the time period. Plus we imagine the screen is on without being told -- after all it can't blink it if it's switched off. And "TV" can be LCD or not. So we get less detail than before.

I wonder if you can do something with "cathode ray tubes". Now that would would give period colour. Though obviously you can't start the line with it, but you might find a way to work it in.

In that same line I also wonder if "merrily" fits the tone of the first two stanzas which presents a mildly threatening vibe with its muggers and kidnappers and the wrong side of town. Or maybe you want the contrast. Still, I wondered about something like "flicker and blink". Flickering gives maybe a bit of ghost-like vibe, appropriate to being in the past.

-Matt

[Carl Copeland]

Thanks again, Matt!

Originally Posted by Matt Q

In terms of your revision, no I don't that that really improves matters. Forgetting about the metre for a moment, sacrilegious though that may be on this thread, I think "lit TV screens" is maybe a bit "blah".

At the moment, my only fallback is “The TV screens,” which is even blaher, not to mention fillerish, but maybe I’ll come round to it.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

It doesn't resolve the time period.

I’m not concerned about specifying the time period, if that’s what you mean, just about clearing up the inconsistency you noticed. I’ve ruled out Gameboys at the very least.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

Plus we imagine the screen is on without being told -- after all it can't blink it if it's off. And "TV" can be LCD or not. So we get less detail than before.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

In that same line I also wonder if "merrily" fits the tone of the first two stanzas which presents a mildly threatening vibe with its muggers and kidnappers and the wrong side of town. Or maybe you want the contrast.

I do want the contrast, and if anything, I’m already farther on the dark side than I wanted to be.