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Dr bill you got tip-toeing and tap-dancing but missed Toe tapping!
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The metrical foot is the basic unit of meter. The most common metrical feet and their patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables are as follows:
iamb: X /
trochee: / X
anapest: X X /
dactyl: / X X
spondee: / /
pyrrhic: X X
The meter of a poem is determined by the predominant metrical foot, and by the number of feet per line that predominates in the poem. The following terms indicate the number of feet per line:
monometer: one foot per line
dimeter: two feet per line
trimeter: three feet per line
tetrameter: four feet per line
pentameter: five feet per line
hexameter: six feet per line
heptameter: seven feet per line
octameter: eight feet per line
Although there are terms for longer lines, the fact is that if a line gets much beyond eight feet (and even if it approaches eight feet), it tends to break into two shorter lines, simply because the speaker must pause for breath. http://nv.essortment.com/metricalfoot_rxjm.htmofTroy: Your whitewashed observations were most edifying. Sounds as though our brains hold a contortionist version of ourselves. Best regards, Westwords-Ho!
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Carpal Tunnel
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a little bit of foot work here-- (i looked at the Engrish site again-- hadn't in months and notices the sign on the door "Emergency Trap"-- it wa pointed out that Trap means stairs in dutch--and i realized, of course-- the Palisades of NJ use to be mined-- for Trap rock-- kind of fine basalt that forms steps...) i wanted to see if there was an other meaning of trap in English meaning stairs. i was thinking about a trap door, but while on the page of my M-W 10th, i tripped over trapezium-- and found a four footed table.. who'd a thought! trapeze and trapizoid come from the same roots..
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Bravo, tsuwm, on parallelepiped Till looking it up, I imagined parallel lines of flautists padding away while tooting...
Hoof and mouth disease
Hoofed it out of there
Gait
Guccis
Mocassins
Sneakers
Slippers
If a woman's second toe is the longest, she will dominate any romantic relationship (Just thought I'd throw that little bit of folk wisdom on board...)
Sticking one's foot into one's mouth (I am gifted at this)
Marching orders
Shuffle off to Buffalo
Time step
Pitter-patter of little feet
Toe in the door
Foot in the door
"Your mother wears army boots!" (This is just for Jackie, whom I quote from the insult thread...)
Shoe store
"We're going to have a really big shoe!" Ed Sullivan
"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe."
Silk stockings
Socks
Anklets
Seamless stockings
Trod, plod, shod, hop, skip, jump, spring, spin, twist, sprint, ramble, scramble, jaunter, lollygag, loiter, break away...
And there's got to be a verb for the musician who keeps time by beating his toe inside his shoe...
Then there's relevé and jeté...and probably lots of others like these.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oh dub dubya, i go one better than sticking my foot in my mouth--
i have been know to open my mouth only to change feet!
and you missed Blue Stocking.
and trapped in an other way we have an impediment..
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So, ofTroy, if we think deeply about roots, a speech impediment is really a veiled way of saying one has put one's foot into one's mouth? And also something could be expedient--so maybe a speech expedient would be one's ability to ameliorate our speech impediments, hmmm?
And, to add to tsuwm's centipede, can't overlook the millipede...
Oedipus (It means something like crippled or wounded foot)
Now what about octopus? 8-what?
And paddleboats...
And pedal-pushers...
And pedestals...
"Put the pedal to the metal."
"Walk a mile for a Camel."
"These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"
"Shoe" by Jeff MacNelly
Santa fills stockings, and in some places, shoes...
Then there's the great Romantic composer, Franz Shoebert...
Shoe horns are blown by heels.
Athlete's foot
Foot - length of 12 inches
"Deadman walking" (very sad to consider, really)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear of troy: your trap rock is found in many places where successively smaller outpourings of basalt made like giant steps for which apparently Norwegian word is trap, like German Treppen meaning stairs. Like in Treppenwitz, the clever retort that comes to you too late on the stairs going out. And did anybody trip the light fantastic?
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wwh: On the trap, is this the rock of which the Giant's Causeway has been formed?
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I think the Giant's Causeway is different. The thing about it that is spectacular is that the magma cooled in such way as to form long vertical prisms with small hexagonal cross section. I read article about it in Scientific American a few years ago but can't remember details. I found several sites about traps, but they were so long I doubted they would be enjoyed.
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Carpal Tunnel
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'Treppenwitz' is an expression for the case when a joke comes to your mind too late, when you're already descending the staircase.
bill, you don't know how long I looked for a word/phrase for this concept, until discovering about a year ago the F. phrase l'esprit d'escalier; the wit of the staircase.
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