Talk:Metres of Roman comedy

I have used British English spellings for "metre", "anapaest", "diaeresis", "centre". If a consensus prefers the US spellings, it could theoretically be changed. I also accidentally spelled the title with a capital C for Comedy, which a senior editor might care to correct. Kanjuzi (talk) 05:19, 18 May 2017 (UTC) – I have now made the latter change. Kanjuzi (talk) 12:50, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Formatting
You mentioned elsewhere that you didn't like how the scansion  formatting rendered in PDF, so I generated a PDF of this article to see for myself. (First, I'm assuming I'm seeing the same thing you are... only probably true!) I don't know whether you object to the tiny font or the lack of expected indentation. But I've slightly reformatted 1 example below with fixes that may help both problems (I don't know myself what it will look like in PDF yet... that's the next step). Cheers.


 * PH. nondúm mihi crédis? DO. hárioláre. PH. sín fidém do? DO. fábuláe!

 | – u – | | – –  –   – | uu –  –    – || –  –  uu   –  | –  u – | tr7 | – –  –   – | –  u  –    – || –  u  –    uu | –  u – | tr7 | – uu –   – | –  –  uu   – || –  u  –    –  | –  u – | tr7 | –  –  –  – |  –    uu –  –  | –    –  u – | ia6
 * – –  u  – | –   –  u  – || u    –  –  –  | u    –  u – | ia8
 * uu – –  – | –   –  –  – || u    –  uu uu | u    uu –   | ia7
 * – –  uu – | –   uu u  – |  u , –  u  –  | –    –  u – | ia8
 * PH. Dorio!

In the code, I've copied some of the tricks I tried in the Persian meter table: I've forced a slightly larger font within , and I've cut down the massive top and bottom margin added by . We'll see if that does anything for you. Phil wink (talk)


 * OK, in my PDF, the above solved both problems nicely. Gonna try 100% for the font... Phil wink (talk) 20:32, 1 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it's actually still a little big in the PDF, but I'm guessing it will be the best compromise. Phil wink (talk) 20:34, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Locus Jacobsohnianus
I have elsewhere expressed scepticism about the very odd example from the Miles, relying as it does on the concept of brevis in longo, which is dubious enough even at the end of a line and before a break, let alone here. It could easily be removed, I believe, by inserting ut after dicere, on the assumption that the scribe passed over the short word beginning with u to the next word uolui. Palaeographically this is very easy. Or, if the syntax is right, which I don't know, it could be dicerem, assuming the loss of but one letter. Any comments? 16:54, 26 March 2021 (UTC)


 * You're right, it is very suspicious. Perhaps a better example of the law can be found. Laidlaw in his article is actually quite sceptical about the existence of the locus Jacobsohnianus, except where there is a change of speaker or a hiatus. The topic is discussed in Fortson (2008) Language and Rhythm in Plautus, pp. 76–97, but I don't have access to that. Kanjuzi (talk) 11:09, 8 July 2021 (UTC) – For the time being I have deleted the example, as it is questionable. Kanjuzi (talk) 11:13, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Metrical symbols
An anonymous reader prefers | ⏖ ⏑ ⏖ – | ⏖ ⏑ – – | to | uu u uu – | uu u – – |. The use of the letter "u" is certainly not ideal, it's true, but it is convenient to type and easy to read. As for the funny little symbols ⏑, they are not really proper brevia and it seems they weren't designed as such. They are too small and too low in the line compared with the macra, so that in my opinion they don't look right. Real brevia, matching the size and level of the macra, don't seem to be available on Wikipedia. Moreover, there is no point in changing just one section and not the rest of the article. So I think it is preferable to keep the "u" symbol, and I have changed it back. I hope readers don't mind. Kanjuzi (talk) 09:53, 8 July 2021 (UTC)