Word: scansion
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Dates: during 1929-1929
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...lifelong student of language, Laureate Bridges has now justified his reputation. The English language, unlike Latin, Greek or French, is supposedly incapable of quantitative versification: i. e., the scansion of English verse is not dependent on "long" or "short" syllables since there is no such formal distinction between syllables in English. Sensitive ears, like those of Laureate Bridges, however, permit a treatment of English as Virgil treated Latin, with heed to both "long" and "short" syllables. When he speaks of "loose alexandrines" he is cracking a scholarly joke, for his careful quantitative measurement makes every line scan perfectly. The spelling...
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