There's an interesting thread on metre here, which includes one of my favorite takes on metre ever, from Michael Slipp:

Roger,
Your trust and confidence is heart warming. Who's strutting? There is a lot of plodding counting occasionally and I think it can be to the detriment of the poem. I always give a yelp when I feel a beat is missed and I'm often told it was meant and then I'm content.

Is this a classroom or a place for mature poets to discuss their work?

I missed the dig about "petrafied" which is cruel but funny. Petra you didn't mind did you? You can get your own back when Richard least expects it.
Janet

Since when is cruel funny, Janet? Getting one's own back is strange advice from someone who claims to have a mature attitude.

It seems we've stopped talking about either spelling or scansion and are talking about each other's attitudes. Probably not a good thing. I've sent some PMs. Can we correct course?

It was a yoke Yanice.

Quite right Maryann

I've gone off the boil since posting this.
It's a bitter and twisted observation by one who migrated from Denmark to Norway and encountered some exceptional small-mindedness in the communities there. I'm sure English version are available, but I'll sort of interpret it literally, as it were, or word for word.
Spellchecks are a pain in the arse/ass/ræva/rump/rompa/cul etc and it should be easy enough to see why.
Yeah yeah

Du skal ikke tro at du er noget
You shall not think you are anything
Du skal ikke tro du er lige så meget som os
You shall not think you are as much as us
Du skal ikke tro du er klogere end os
You shall not think yourself more wise than us
Du skal ikke bilde dig ind at du er bedre end os
You shall not imagine that you are better than us
Du skal ikke tro du ved mere end os
You shall not think you know more than us
Du skal ikke tro du er mere end os
You shall not think you are more than us
Du skal ikke tro at du duer til noget
You shall not think you are any use
Du skal ikke le ad os
You shall not laugh at us
Du skal ikke tro at nogen bryder sig om dig
You shall not think anyone cares about you
Du skal ikke tro du kan lære os noget
You shall not think you can teach us anything

These are things that potential immigrants to Eratosphere need to know, apparently.

Peter, try taking the negatives out, switch the nothing's etc. to something's etc., and see how it reads:

You shall think you are something.
You shall think you are as much as us.
You shall think yourself more wise than us.
You shall imagine that you are better than us.
You shall think you know more than us.
You shall think you are more than us.
You shall think you are of use.
You shall laugh at us.
You shall think everyone cares about you.
You shall think you can teach us something.

Would you prefer a community where such an ethos prevails? (Do you find it realistic, humanly plausible?) And even if you were to feel (initially) welcome in such a place yourself, how long do you think it might be before you begin to find it difficult dealing with other new arrivals applying that standard in their dealings with you, as an established member of the group?

Every community has its standards, and every community requires a period of adjustement from new members. Eratosphere is no different in that respect. I must say, however, I find the overall thrust of your attack quite groundless. Not everyone here is immediately friendly to newcomers, of course, but some positively outdo themselves in trying to help. And really, anyone is welcome to join. All you need to do is sign up and start posting. The trick is not to make a jerk of yourself.

Frankly, if you want to make a jerk of yourself here, I can't imagine a better way than to adopt an attiude of "anti-Jantelagen," in principle and practice. And I rather suspect that the same would go for any community anywhere.

Jerome, Thank you very much for that stuff about tools and grammar. I never knew you could do that. Ive selected English (Ireland). How do you suppose that differs from English (United Kingdom)? Does anyone know? Could anyone hazard a guess?

Yeah peter. It's the same if you go from England to Scotland. You have to tread warily for about twenty years.

Magnificent, Stephen. We've now cooked it down to a simple phrase such as: Eratosphere is a community and/or environment in which members may seek to justify the application of Janteloven.
I rest my case.

You're right about that of course, John. From one part of England to another only takes about ten years.

Deleted: A joke more polemic than humorous and too sardonic for anyone's good.

I'll have you know my wife is half Irish, was born in Limerick and had an Uncle who was Mayor of that fair city and gunned down on his own doorstep by the Black and Tans. Game, set and match I would have thought.

My people are from County Galway. I still feel the heartache, though I'm just a dumb American. But I shake my head at the bitterness. My grandfather seemed to support American isolationism during World War II only because he didn't want the English as allies.

Edit: My father and I were in an "Irish" pub here in the States. (You know the kind, I'm sure. All in the Irish manner ... as us Yanks understand it.) He rather innocently recited the charm "twenty-six and six" and the owner stared in a cold fury and stated, "Never."

John, you've got me interested. So far I've only found this, and it's not from an authority:

Is there a Microsoft word that can spell check Irish slang?
You know words like eegit, gobshite, feck etc.

Or like old terms like Tir Na Nog

It doesn’t even recognise Da. I do not use that word but I am just after reading a book, which used that word a lot.

There is an English (Ireland) in Microsoft word but it mostly only has place names.

If they recognise a word like thingamajig in their dictionary which very few people use why can’t they update the other words?

Kevin

John--

English (Ireland) is, to my knowledge, identical to English (UK)--indeed, my work computers while in Ireland always had English (UK) set as the default.

Quincy

That's what I suspected, Quincy. However, I tried correct and incorrect versions of 'taoiseach' in both English and Irish settings and English (UK) underlined the correct spelling but put nothing under the incorrect one, while English (Ireland) underlined both. I wonder what English (Zimbabwe) or English (Indonesia) would do?

John, your mention of your wife's antecedents reminded me that:

I once knew a lady interested in breeding who claimed to be 'related to half Megavissey',
A claim which caused something of a tiff, tantrum or tizzy,
Merely because I then asked her a genealogical question important enough to be bound, as it were, in verbal tooled gilt calf -
Yes, but WHICH half?

When examining scansion and metrics in formal poetry, most of us who visit and post on this site, I think, are able to discriminate between the purely novice or inept handling of meter and the more accomplished use of metrical feet. Generally, extremes are easily noticed, as in the difference between two clumsy, awkward adolescents lurching across the floor at a high school prom and a pair of trained ballroom dancers gliding through a waltz.

Some of the most intense debate and disagreement over the prosody of a particular poem occurs when a writer who has obviously studied and labored at the craft, a writer who possesses apparent skill and talent, takes greater liberties with meters and rhythms than other qualified writers and readers are willing to accept. Such difference of opinion is desirable. It should be embraced and welcome.

In such cases of differing views and differing ears, however, I remind myself to avoid being rash and imprudent in declaring that a particular line, passage, or entire poem is flat out wrong because conventional metrics have been altered or transformed in ways not readily agreeable to me.

The established masters in the canon offer us a beautiful and expansive range of metrical observance and metrical noncompliance. And they also offer beneficial examples that illustrate how at times we may be inaccurate in our initial assessment of a writer who uses language in an especially malleable manner.

For example, consider the history of John Donne’s reputation. One critic has written that “no other poet currently so admired has fallen from favor for so long and been so condemned as inept and crude.” Even the famous Ben Jonson, a friend and admirer of Donne, said that “Donne for not keeping accent deserved hanging.”

Isn’t that a wonderful literary anecdote? Isn’t it telling?

Richard

As someone here has mentioned - and it needs mentioning again - if we could hear poets reading their poems a great deal of the metrical problems we perceive in their work would fall away. Even within 50 miles from where I live there are regional variations in speaking that can add or subtract a syllable, speed up or slow down, or skim over or prolong a phrase. The fun of metrics is to stretch what can be done within the line, and sometimes on the page this variation doesn't always come across. Of course it has to be said 99% of poems are read not heard, but it's worth thinking about.

And that's a shame.

Going back to the original question. Where does it say anywhere in the rubric that spell-check is expected? What is obvious to a newcomer is that more preparation of text is expected in TDE so perhaps for Metrical itself there should be a few gentle guidelines as to the state/standard expected. I realise I've used the word "expected" three times.

One of the hardest things for the joiner of any group is to second-guess the expectations of the established members. Would it hurt to help them?

I am acting as Devil's advocate here. As an "established" poet, I would not dream of posting anything that wasn't as good as I could get it on my own before asking for the input - or reaction (thank you, Janet) - of others. The reason I haven't started a thread so far is that I have just had a book published and I didn't have anything left to submit for criticism that fulfilled my own criteria. Or the Sphere's - my choice was vanity posting or offering suspect crap - either would have breached the protocols as I perceived them and insulted the community of poets I have come to admire and respect.

But if really were a newcomer? A "wannabee" as someone said in a different forum (though I'd have spelt it with a single "e"). How would I have known what Eratosphere expected?

My first critical posts here were ingenuous and ill-judged. I was helped by moderators and several generous poets to remedy that. But I soon found myself peering into other forums to find out who was who and what they believed. And I often wish I hadn't.

I want to offer in my turn the generosity of spirit that was offered to me when I first entered Eratosphere. I am now struggling in my own head - not for the first time - with the difference between élitism and excellence. I want to go back to the poetry.

Re Kevin (post 58).

FYI. It is possible to add an audio file, if the poet so wishes. Give it a go.

Janice, I'd like to try. I will request that the elves work on a microphone for delivery on Christmas Eve. (I wonder if Santa gives technical support.)

Kevin

Ann, there's no written guideline that says we expect members to run a spell-check program, certainly. I wasn't sure when I first read Petra's initial post that she meant a program. We do expect people to proofread for various little errors; I have to remind myself where we say that.

Reading the General Talk board, one learns about a great many "expectations" that are not written down anywhere, and that are not, in fact, everybody's expectations. This is the one place we have to hash out these differences, so on GT we sometimes give the impression that we're intolerant in various ways.

For example, some members have insisted that unless there's a revision, the poet isn't workshopping in good faith. Some don't want to see too many revisions that are too different. Some get ruffled when their critiques aren't directly reciprocated. Some don't want to see too many individual "thank you" posts. Some don't want to see threads on GT that are merely links to amusing matter elsewhere. About all those "expectations," and many others, there are no written rules, but there's a wide range of opinion.

I guess my only counsel is tolerance.

That's my fondest wish as well.

To attach a sound file (or image) click on the "paper clip" in the top row of the editing tools which you see when you are composing a post.

Thanks, Maryann - see you back there.