XKCD Cartoon
(Title text: “And then whisper ‘anapest’ in my ear as you hold me?”)
Source–XKCD, of course.
How many of my readers will not just get the joke, but can name the appropriate feet? No googling!
Get Out Of My Head, Randall Munroe!
The Digital Cuttlefish
Since the music plays so briefly... Can you blame me if I dance?
Ok, actually, it bothers me that it is “Linguist” with a foot fetish–the linguists I know couldn’t be bothered in the slightest with metrical feet. But I still love the cartoon.
I got it, but only with your comment about “appropriate feet.” And four years of Latin.
Arma virumque cano…
(Rot13’d for those playing along at home.)
Gebpurrf, gura vnzof.
I’m not well-versed enough to remember the type of trisyllabic feet with stress on the third syllable, though. Sorry.
Such erudition!
Didn’t have a clue until you gave title text. Dunno why I know anapest. Don’t know any of the meters, but pretty sure that “linguist” is wrong …. unless it’s something about a cunning linguist. (Would getting tongued in trochee be a treat? (Yay, I knew another one.))
Trochaeus, iambus, dactylus – Now give a few examples for lines / verses written in them, like Hexameters, distichons, sapphic ode, asclepiadaean ode, etc . . .
Does it count as “No googling” if I used the ExplainXKCD wiki (www.explainxkcd.com) instead? I’ll admit, though, this is the first one I’ve needed help understanding in a long time.
But… but… ‘anapest’ is not an …um…. anapest
(I wonder if that’s why 1984 wasn’t like ‘1984’?)
And anyway she should have been a prosodist!!!
So there!!!!!
Sorry to be a pest (an a pest I’m sure iamb) but I now have Popeye’s “Iamb what iamb!” stuck in my head (or was that Yahweh’s?)
I always had trouble remember ing the various meters because their names didn’t correspond their meters. “Iamb” is a trochee, “trochee” can be pronounced as an iamb, “dactyl” is a trochee and “anapest” is a dactyl. It’s all very confusing.
gAytheist
Those Ancient Greeks were right bastards—just ask any Trojan.
A virile young man named McNameter
Had a tool of prodigious diameter
But it wasn’t his size
That gave ladies surprise
‘Twas his rhythm: dactylic hexameter.
Trouchee and iamb are easy, but I always get the three-syllable feet mixed up. Amphibrach?
Thanks, Cuttlefish, for giving me enough hints to figure out that cartoon. Usually I don’t get the point of an XKCD cartoon because it refers to computer techogeek terminology but this one was about something I’d been exposed to in high school.
Note: I graduated from high school 48 years ago.
What a load of utter rubbish for poseurs!
And for you Randomfactor with your 4 years of Latin, I give you Catullus Carmina 16,
To wit:
Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo
After donning the appropriate prosthesis, of course.
Ooooooops!
After a quick read of your blog, I realise my extant profanity might very well offend.
Feel free to ignore my previous comment.
Though I would love to include the first and terminal lines of Catullus Carmina 16 for the fun of your commenter Randomfactor. Four years of Latin – high school perhaps – would have learned him plenty enough to translate it.
I hope he translate the final word – “clintonise” – that is so funny!
Y’all need to memorize a little Coleridge! (I did go look this up because I haven’t memorized the punctuation.)
Trochee trips from long to short;
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow Spondee stalks, strong foot!, yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactyl’s trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long.
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.
One syllable long, with one short at each side,
Amphibrachys hastes with a stately stride –
First and last being long, middle short, Amphimacer
Strikes his thundering hoofs like a proud high-bred Racer.
If Derwent be innocent, steady, and wise,
And delight in the things of earth, water, and skies;
Tender warmth at his heart, with these meters to show it,
With sound sense in his brains, may make Derwent a poet –
May crown him with fame, and must win him the love
Of his father on earth and his father above.
My dear, dear child!
Could you stand upon Skiddaw, you would not from its whole ridge
See a man who so loves you as your fond S.T. Coleridge.