meter (was sprinkles/jimmies; had been: Angel-Hair; Soft Ice Cream; Pizza Bagel; Sirloin Tips))

[Mark A. Mandel]

I wrote:

>>>>>
Clink! Yeah, that would work in oral transmission... but when I *read* your
post, I automatically prosodized it as

     i'll have ICE cream with JIMmies on it PLEASE
<<<<<

Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU> commented:

>>>>>
Oops, I just remembered anapest--wasn't that what Mark's reading of the
line was?  "The AsSYRian came DOWN like a WOLF on the FOLD..." vs. "THIS is
the FORest primEval"--or whatever.  I'm dipping WAY back for these.
<<<<<

No, my scansion doesn't match any metrical foot. This is the way I would
normally say it. English is stress-timed, not syllable-timed, and if I pay
attention to making this sentence metrical or singable, I space the three
stressed syllables equally. Trying it out, I seem to stretch "ice" (made
heavy by the following cluster, [aIskr]) to two beats, while all the other
syllables have just one beat.

-- Mark