our iambic language
Catherine just said some loving thing to Greta, whom she called "Greta Girl." Lots of people on her side of the family use the name "Greta Girl." Also, cousin Asher was often called "Asher Boy," but, interestingly, Isabel was never called "Isabel Girl" and Miriam was never called "Miriam Girl," although we still often call Miriam "Baby Miriam."
What's happening here? Simple: it's our iambic language. In English class you had to memorize the fact that lots of English poetry is iambic, but there probably wasn't an in-depth discussion of why. The reason is that the English language itself tends toward the iambic.
What's happening here? Simple: it's our iambic language. In English class you had to memorize the fact that lots of English poetry is iambic, but there probably wasn't an in-depth discussion of why. The reason is that the English language itself tends toward the iambic.
An iamb is a two-syllable foot that goes buh-DUMP. The first syllable is unstressed and the second is stressed. A trochee is the opposite: BAH-dump. German is trochaic: you can do a pretty good mock-German just by going BLIEB-en DORF-en LEICHT-ic RUNST-lich STRAS-se.
Other languages tend to gather in three-syllable feet. Italian is anapestic: ba-da-BEE! ba-da-BAH! Spanish is amphibrachic: co-HI-ba ma-ÑA-na tor-TI-lla.
In English, if something isn't iambic, we often jigger things around to make it iambic. So, it's very deeply linguistically satisfying to make "Greta" into "Greta Girl," and, on the other hand, "Miriam" into "Baby Miriam." That last foot plunks down on a nice fat English iamb.
In English, if something isn't iambic, we often jigger things around to make it iambic. So, it's very deeply linguistically satisfying to make "Greta" into "Greta Girl," and, on the other hand, "Miriam" into "Baby Miriam." That last foot plunks down on a nice fat English iamb.
Comments