Spell Check & Scan Check
 

Can I liken the two, or is it too provocative? Posters are expected to spell check their poems before posting them in a workshop for critique. We all find it frustrating from time to time when someone fails to do that. But what about scanning a metrical poem? My guess is many people write by ear and get it wrong from time to time, but if they scanned their poem before posting they might snap up some of the mistakes. So it is such a bad thing to do?

Of course, some "flaws" are intentional and therefore not flaws at all; they're irregularities; someone might actually want, say, a four-beat line in a five-beat poem. However, I truly think that there are others who are striving for the same number of beats or same meter throughout a poem and that they really would catch some mistakes if they bothered to give the poem a last-minute scan.

That might be true for the occasional one-beat-short line, but those are easily caught and fixed by the first critter.

For me, the main reason scansion is not like spell checking is that scansion has subjective elements. Often a criticism of scansion is not about error but about hearing differently. One poet may pronounce a word like "file" with two syllables; others will hear one, and they'll hear that line as short. Another may use a lot of anapestic substitutions; those might scan properly in his or her own ears, while others find those lines too bumpy.

ms Carter and even ms Witherspoon, to her great credit, gat quite a few notes/beats out of the word 'I' while singing 'Jackson'

having said that, I frequently (relative to the frequency of my posting) offer up lines a syllable or a foot short, and then have the shortcoming pointed out to me

then I decide what, if anything, to do about it

the boards here are heavily loaded with discouraging factors

no more

It's remarkably easy to come out with a line that's a foot short. The only way is to RECITE the thing out loud, which may not be a good thing to do in the middle of the night - when I wite a good deal of my stuff. Sometimes a line seems to scan on Monday and doesn't on Tuesdays. That's particularly so when yoiu are using one of those LONG lines. It's MUCH more dofficult than spelling, or it is to me. The spellcheck provided by microsoft is bloody useless, but I suppose it's better than nothing. But even when it's turned over to 'English Spelling' it doesn't know how to spell in English. I can't stand having things like 'theater' and 'labor' popping up all over the place. That man Webster has a lot to answer for.

I suppose it's 'British Spelling' but the Scots can do as they like.

Scanning is immensely personal. It is very dependent on accent. Spell Check is maddening for Brits and others of that spelling persuasion. I have come to spell in several ways. I always write "meter" on Eratosphere because it's how most of you write it. I decided years ago to adopt the American spelling of "program" since the French/English spelling seemed unnecessarily floral. I like the etymological clues which remain in English spelling. The Australian "Labor" party uses American spelling although the normal way to spell the word in Australia is "labour". But then the "conservative/reactionary" party is called "Liberal". Politics makes its own rules.

The spellcheck provided by microsoft is bloody useless, but I suppose it's better than nothing. But even when it's turned over to 'English Spelling' it doesn't know how to spell in English. I can't stand having things like 'theater' and 'labor' popping up all over the place. That man Webster has a lot to answer for.

I suppose it's 'British Spelling' but the Scots can do as they like.

John, I just don't understand this comment. The spellcheck in my Word programme, dating from 2002, offers 15 different world varieties of English as well as English (UK) and English (US), though not Scots, I notice. You just set your default langauge to English(UK) and it accepts 'theatre' and so on.

The only drawback I've come across is that if you read a downloaded American text it sometimes trips the default language back to English (US) and you have to reset English (UK) via Tools. Maybe that's what's been happening to you?

It must be possible to produce a programme which would check scansion as well as spelling, highlight inversions, duff rhymes, repetitions, non sequiturs etc, but it wouldn't be as good as the Sphere.

That's why I don't use my real name around here.

PS--
But I think Petra just means to say that we shouldn't post poems with stupid mistakes in them, whether it's spelling or meter. I can't imagine anyone seriously disagrees with the sentiment. I think she's talking about absolutely glaring metrical mistakes, not arguable ones. Personally, I try to live by that rule myself, but I find it reassuring when a poet I admire proves mortal by the occasional dropped beat.

Yes, Holly, it would be programmatic. Which my little fierce soul would find problematic!

Jerome, maybe what you describe is the problem. I shall look into it. WHY does it go back to this default setting? It shouldn't, should it? Of course I don't write 'theater', but it's just annoying that it wants me to. Also, why does it dislike long sentences? Is there anyway I can stop it telling me to shorten my sentences? I'm not Henry James for God's sake. And it has a very shaky grasp of grammar.