Back to the gym; scansion

[redbird]

Having not been to the gym in about a fortnight, I discovered after I got there that I didn't have my combination lock with me. I didn't want to buy yet another, so I schlepped my pack with me, which is both less fun and something the gym doesn't really like. It would have been a minimal workout anyway, though, because I was squeezing it in after work:


Crunches, 4 sets of 20
Back arches, 3 sets of 17 (@ lunchtime)

Cardio, 5-minute warmup

Seated leg press, 370 pounds, 12.
Leg extension, 80 pounds, 12 (in fits and starts).
Leg curl, 110 pounds, 12.
Lat pulldown, 105 pounds, 12.
Overhead press, 50 pounds, 11
Vertical chest press, 60? pounds, 9.
Biceps, 45 pounds, 11
Triceps, 50 pounds, 12

And then changed back into my street clothes, with neither serious stretches nor a shower, and came home.

Meanwhile, reading the subway-provided excerpt from Yeats again, I realized that it isn't actually in iambic pentameter, no matter how I try to force it. Or rather, some lines are, but not all: "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold" is iambs, but I cannot make "The ceremony of innocence is drowned" fit into ten syllables, and "Turning and turning in the widening gyre" is only iambic pentameter if I pronounce "widening" with the "e" silent, as "wide-ning" instead of "wide-en-ing" (which may be how Yeats would have said it). It doesn't rhyme either, but that's less startling.

Have I been confused all these years, or is this just the difference between New York dialect of today and Irish of a century ago?

Also seen on the subway: "War is Peace: Bush/Orwell 2004".

Comments

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

I'd say, 'wid-ning' quite happily?