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Pyrrhic meter
A metrical unit consisting of two unstressed syllables, in accentual-syllabic verse, or two short syllables, in quantitative meter. Though regularly found in classical Greek poetry, pyrrhic meter is not generally used in modern systems of prosody: unaccented syllables are instead grouped with surrounding feet. Andrew Marvell’s “The Garden” contains examples of pyrrhic meter, here in bold: “To a green thought in a green shade.”
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His rhyme would appear to be passable anapestic tetrameter, but it doesn’t scan perfectly.
I agree that the sign could have been cut down a bit. Perhaps the typo in Bill’s headline is an unintentional tip in that direction.
Are you saying “dollars”? Leaving it off can help with the scansion, but still awkward.
BTW, I meant to do more of a lookup, but perhaps someone will already know – – What, if anything, is the connection to “Pyrrhic victory”?
Bill, what did you thin John Deering thins “pyrrhic” means?
“No more rhymes now, I mean it!”
“Anybody want a peanut?”
Not as good as the New Yorker cartoon jury foreman/poet:
“Roses are red,
Your hands as well.
This jury finds you
Guilty as hell.”
Arguably, this couplet does include pyrrhic feet: “-ty, no” in the first line and “-dred dol-” in the second line. Of course, a lot of people say that English doesn’t use pyrrhic feet, but then you have to say that “-ty, no appeal” and “-dred dollar fine” are quartus paeons, which surely doesn’t seem any more likely.
Mitch4, the terms are unconnected, except that they both come from ancient Greek. “Pyrrhic victory” refers to a remark by Pyrrhus of Epirus: “one more such victory and we are lost.” The pyrrhic foot comes from an ancient Greek war dance called the pyrrhic, thought to have been so named for an otherwise unknown Pyrrichos or Pyrrhus.
I never like poetry and so didn’t learn much about it.I did find out the (reasonably obvious) fact that poems and songs with similar meter can be used with the melody from any similar one. Like most ballads can use the tune from Gilligan’s Island. As can much of Emily Dickinson’s poetry.
At an sf convention many years ago a colleague and I, over a number of beers, invented a “challenge” game in which we tried to fit the words of the Heinlein verse “We pray for one last landing / On the globe that gave us birth / Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies / And the cool green hills of Earth” to increasingly improbable other songs. It works very well with the Coke “It’s the real thing” jingle, but requires major giggles to be forced into “Ghost Riders in the Sky” or (the consensus winner) “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.”
And now all of you can play along as well!
@Shrug and @Brian in STL:
I love that sort of thing. Like Bob Rivers doing an impression of Eric Burdon singing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun”.
TV Tropes has a list of songs in Common Meter, including The Green Hills of Earth.
What kind of shoes would you wear on your Pyyrhic feet?
I was familiar with Pyyrhic victories, but not Pyyrhic meter, so I didn’t get the comic.
Isn’t bail something you pay while you’re awaiting trial, not part of the sentencing?
@ Chris – Amid all the other inadequacies and irrelevancies in this strip, the mistaken terminology that you pointed out just gets lost in the shuffle.
Chris Mundale: It’s also rather tyrannical for the judge who sentences you to declare that you can’t appeal. You would normally think some higher authority (e.g. the Court of Appeals) to decide that.
@ WW – You’ve managed to hit upon an oddity in Germany’s legal system that I have never been able to understand. In at least some instances, German courts have the ability to declare whether an appeal to the next level is admissible or not. As far as I am concerned, that should be a question for the next level to decide.
It’s poetic justice: I’d expect some poetic licence to be allowed.
Comics I Don't Understand 
From https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/pyrrhic-meter …
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Pyrrhic meter
A metrical unit consisting of two unstressed syllables, in accentual-syllabic verse, or two short syllables, in quantitative meter. Though regularly found in classical Greek poetry, pyrrhic meter is not generally used in modern systems of prosody: unaccented syllables are instead grouped with surrounding feet. Andrew Marvell’s “The Garden” contains examples of pyrrhic meter, here in bold: “To a green thought in a green shade.”
“
His rhyme would appear to be passable anapestic tetrameter, but it doesn’t scan perfectly.
I agree that the sign could have been cut down a bit. Perhaps the typo in Bill’s headline is an unintentional tip in that direction.
Are you saying “dollars”? Leaving it off can help with the scansion, but still awkward.
BTW, I meant to do more of a lookup, but perhaps someone will already know – – What, if anything, is the connection to “Pyrrhic victory”?
Bill, what did you thin John Deering thins “pyrrhic” means?
“No more rhymes now, I mean it!”
“Anybody want a peanut?”
Not as good as the New Yorker cartoon jury foreman/poet:
“Roses are red,
Your hands as well.
This jury finds you
Guilty as hell.”
Arguably, this couplet does include pyrrhic feet: “-ty, no” in the first line and “-dred dol-” in the second line. Of course, a lot of people say that English doesn’t use pyrrhic feet, but then you have to say that “-ty, no appeal” and “-dred dollar fine” are quartus paeons, which surely doesn’t seem any more likely.
Mitch4, the terms are unconnected, except that they both come from ancient Greek. “Pyrrhic victory” refers to a remark by Pyrrhus of Epirus: “one more such victory and we are lost.” The pyrrhic foot comes from an ancient Greek war dance called the pyrrhic, thought to have been so named for an otherwise unknown Pyrrichos or Pyrrhus.
I never like poetry and so didn’t learn much about it.I did find out the (reasonably obvious) fact that poems and songs with similar meter can be used with the melody from any similar one. Like most ballads can use the tune from Gilligan’s Island. As can much of Emily Dickinson’s poetry.
At an sf convention many years ago a colleague and I, over a number of beers, invented a “challenge” game in which we tried to fit the words of the Heinlein verse “We pray for one last landing / On the globe that gave us birth / Let us rest our eyes on the fleecy skies / And the cool green hills of Earth” to increasingly improbable other songs. It works very well with the Coke “It’s the real thing” jingle, but requires major giggles to be forced into “Ghost Riders in the Sky” or (the consensus winner) “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.”
And now all of you can play along as well!
@Shrug and @Brian in STL:
I love that sort of thing. Like Bob Rivers doing an impression of Eric Burdon singing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun”.
TV Tropes has a list of songs in Common Meter, including The Green Hills of Earth.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CommonMeter
What kind of shoes would you wear on your Pyyrhic feet?
I was familiar with Pyyrhic victories, but not Pyyrhic meter, so I didn’t get the comic.
Isn’t bail something you pay while you’re awaiting trial, not part of the sentencing?
@ Chris – Amid all the other inadequacies and irrelevancies in this strip, the mistaken terminology that you pointed out just gets lost in the shuffle.
Chris Mundale: It’s also rather tyrannical for the judge who sentences you to declare that you can’t appeal. You would normally think some higher authority (e.g. the Court of Appeals) to decide that.
@ WW – You’ve managed to hit upon an oddity in Germany’s legal system that I have never been able to understand. In at least some instances, German courts have the ability to declare whether an appeal to the next level is admissible or not. As far as I am concerned, that should be a question for the next level to decide.
It’s poetic justice: I’d expect some poetic licence to be allowed.