Past Imperfect

Thursday, November 20, 2008

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3 comments:

kenju said...: I have no desire to ever cook another huge meal for my whole family - usually 16+ people - ever again! Been there, done that too much! I love the big gatherings, but they exhaust me. I actually look forward to simple meals these days, and lucky for me, so does mr. kenju (most of the time)...LOL; 12:38 PM
Pat said...: Judy: as usual we are at one in this:); 3:49 PM
Area 17 said...: .
"The Egg heads had a question on Haiku – how many syllables in the second line – which they got wrong. Of course we know it’s seven."

Unfortunately the 'syllable count' is not so straightforward, I'm afraid. ;-)

Some Victorian translators tried to force haiku into 'English' rhyming couplets; or quatrains.

One misinformed form was that a haiku was anything that was 17 syllables, of 5/7/5 respectively.

Good line breaks were often ignored so as to force the '5/7/5' shape, and 'Dalek' syntax was the norm, or excessive padding out of unnecessary extra words.

Japanese haiku aren't actually 17 'syllables' of text as their grammar come as words not as symbols such as .,;: etc...

The Japanese language is made of more than one non-Alphabet system; and haiku are counted by 'sound unit' measuring 'on'.

A good weblink is:
Towards a Description of Haiku by Gemma Bristow

I feel that the fact that haiku are not easy makes it a worthwhile lifelong challenge, and great for exercising the left and right sides of the brain too! ;-)

all my best,

Alan
With Words; 11:23 AM

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