Talk:Metrical foot

Ratios named properly?
The source might be accurately cited, but there seems to be some confusion about ratios: "the iambic (where the ratio of arsis to thesis was 1:2), the dactylic (where it was 2:2) and the paeonic (where it was 3:2).[3]" For example, in an iamb, there is one stressed/arsis and one unstressed/thesis. This is a ratio of 1:1, not 1:2. In an anapest (e.g.) yes 1:2. Perhaps what is meant is 1 arsis per foot of two syllables? 1 arsis:2 syllables? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.157.110.195 (talk) 14:38, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Why quantitative measures?
ioio'm a little unclear as to why this article focuses on quantitative meter, especially as it's written in English - there are few successful examples of quantitative meter in English poetry. This article should focus on stresses and not on syllable length.


 * The article seems quite clear about the distinction:
 * A foot is described by the character and number of syllables it contains: in English, feet are named for the combination of accented and unaccented syllables; in other languages such as Latin and Greek, the duration of the syllable (long or short) is measured.
 * Then, before the list of feet:
 * The following lists describe the feet in terms of vowel length (as in classical languages). Translated into syllable stresses (as in English poetry), long becomes accented and short becomes unaccented. For example, an iamb, which is short-long in classical meter, becomes unstressed-stressed, as in the English word "betray."
 * So the article seems to clearly say that in English we use stress/unstress as patterns. Whether the lists are in long-short or stressed-unstressed is basically arbitrary. I think long/short takes precedence here because meter is more often studied in depth in study of classical languages. Tom


 * I understand that. But the fact that it chooses to describe the feet foremostly in quantitative terms with only a note regarding these terms in accentual-syllabic verse suggests that the quantitative description is the more important of the two. It certainly is, if you are writing in a Romance language or studying classical poetry; it is of secondary importance if you are writing in English or studying English poetry. I think an accurate list of accentual-syllabic feet should be included, though I see the importance of describing quantitative feet as well. Perhaps there should be an additional section on accentual-syllabic (or English) feet; this section would only need to describe the iamb, trochee, anapest, dactyl, pyrrhus and spondee, as the remaining classical feet don't really translate well into English. Prestonmarkstone 14:46, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

This Language Rules
I just want to express my appreciation of this line:


 * In verse, many meters use a foot ...

rowley (talk) 17:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

External link
Broken. Maria Sieglinda von Nudeldorf (talk) 11:51, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The link Comprehensive list of feet and colas up to 12 syllables long. Wasdichsoveraenderthat (talk) 11:28, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Visually unclear
Admittedly my eyesight isn't what it once was but nevertheless I found it near-impossible to distinguish between the macron and the breve in the examples in this article. In fact, to make sure I had it right, I had to zoom in on the screen - and I never need to do that. I don't know if this is a problem across other pages in Wikipedia relating to meter / scansion but I would suggest that making the macron quite obviously longer than the breve would go a long way to improving clarity. David T Tokyo (talk) 05:48, 15 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I fixed it by using color. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 06:20, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

I noticed that many (if not all) of the metrical symbols used were graphics, not text. Why not stick to U+23d1–23d9? Further, to the best of my knowledge, the ndash is recommended for long feet. CannedMan (talk) 15:52, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Examples?
Perhaps a few examples would be helpful from people who know this topic, to help complete amateurs (like myself) understand, because the description is not clear for someone not experienced with poetry. Wasdichsoveraenderthat (talk) 11:26, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Western Bias?
These poetic conventions are definitely part of Sanskrit prosody as well. It is even called a 'pada' which is clearly a cognate with the greek/latin term. The meter is so consistent in Vedic poetry that these rules on this page are often used to uncover copyist errors in old manuscripts. I'd imagine metered poetry is fairly ancient in Persian traditions as well. Does anyone have the expertise to include non-greek/latin PIE languages and their use of the metrical foot?Iṣṭa Devatā (talk) 20:56, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

What's the "main article"?
At the bottom of the first table, "Metrical feet and accents", is the cross-reference "See main article for tetrasyllables" but there's no link on it. 108.16.118.229 (talk) 01:33, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Consider Combining Metrical Foot Type Articles into this Article?
Most of the different types of metrical feet have their own stub article (e.g., Bacchius, Pyrrhic, and Cretic - obviously some articles are longer than others, but even the longer ones are still on the shorter side compared to the typical article). In an effort to consolidate these various stubs (insert whatever the appropriate Wikipedia editing philosophy is here), perhaps the entire text of each stub article can be subsumed under this article. Alternatively, consider a "List of Metrical Feet" article with the entire text of each stub article placed in there. Jafonte01 (talk) 14:26, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 19 January 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved (closed by non-admin page mover) BegbertBiggs (talk) 22:13, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Foot (prosody) → Metrical foot – WP:NCDAB says natural disambiguation is generally preferred over parenthetical disambiguation, and in this case, it would be consistent with the existing Category:Metrical feet. The term "metrical foot" is already used in several other articles, and it gets the most page views of any redirect to the current title (about 2.8x that of Foot (poetry)). Google Ngram Viewer also seems to indicate it is the most common of a few alternatives. PleaseStand (talk) 07:59, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Poetry has been notified of this discussion. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 12:38, 19 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Support per nomination. SnowFire (talk) 00:58, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. Hameltion (talk &#124; contribs) 15:15, 20 January 2024 (UTC)