Can someone help me with the scansion of algebra?

[crow]

How would this scan:

"f(you)
Would it scan? I like it because one take on the first part would read kinda like, "F* you. Why you suffering?" Can I force it to scan a certain way by seating it in a standard form?

Thanks, crow

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Great hahaha the forum won't let me post the syntax. Let's try this . . .

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Well, now it works . . .

[billy]

i'm not sure what the x and y are

[crow]

Here's an e.g.:

You take X amount of potatoes and Y amount of butter, whip it together for Z minutes, and you've got A amount of mashed potatoes.

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So I could read the line as:

"Eff of you is less than y times you times suffering minus x times the good"

But I'd like it if it read as:

"Eff you less than y you suffering less x the good."

Here's why I want it to work at all. I'm working on a poem where the ants, instead of sorting grain, kill Psyche, and it's a jokey riff on the B-movie Phase IV, where irradiated ants kill a bunch of people. Here's the original (please wait on critiquing it until I get it finished). But I want line 3 S1 to be a dry calculation of the value of individual suffering:

Phase IV

I don't want to tear you to pieces, I just . . .
Want to bring back something good for all my friends.
You'll suffer so much for sooo much good beginning . . . So who cares?
Remember that icicle? You slammed out and busted
Its grip on the gutter? And you never trusted
Your anger again? Said anger made the scar it gave you sting?
You can be angry now I pulled it from your twitching
Lips. If I had ears, I'd hear the thankfulness.

When You were Psyche, and I piled up the grain?
Last Valentine's You left no meat for Me . . .
But You left yellow cakes! And I'm grateful.
So here's a taste
Of being like Me, gifted and graceful, silently moving
In pieces, feeding My babies, emerging skyward without blinking.

[Truerenigma]

How would this scan:

"f(you)
Would it scan? I like it because one take on the first part would read kinda like, "F* you. Why you suffering?" Can I force it to scan a certain way by seating it in a standard form?

Thanks, crow

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Great hahaha the forum won't let me post the syntax. Let's try this . . .

---

Well, now it works . . .

you can never /force/ something to scan certain way. it always scans the way it is pronounced. You can have awkward promotions and demotions du due to words and phrases not being in their best natural order, but that is something else entirely. no amount of preceding metrical lines will force a botched line to conform to the normative meter; and I think that's what you're asking.

As for scanning this line...

F(you)
that's the best I can offer...but it's probably better to point out that the line is confusing--no one will get it or be sure how to read or say it--and it does not belong in a poem.

[Leanne]

Since the rule is parentheses first, and you have multiple variables in your parentheses, it's going to have to be (y times o times u) times F is less than (y times o times u) times (s times u times...) you get the picture. Of course, it's not an equation so it really should have a conditional if/then statement.

Mix maths and poetry by all means, but remember that there are pedants on both teams.

[tectak]

Since the rule is parentheses first, and you have multiple variables in your parentheses, it's going to have to be (y times o times u) times F is less than (y times o times u) times (s times u times...) you get the picture. Of course, it's not an equation so it really should have a conditional if/then statement.

Mix maths and poetry by all means, but remember that there are pedants on both teams.

Oh boy, do I want to comment! but you are all doing so well...


I am booleanned over.....

tectak

[rayheinrich]

While there are many possible pronunciations/interpretations of:

"f(you)
The first one that came to me as I read it (where '_' and '___' denote pauses and CAPS denote emphasis) was:

" YOU as a function of F _ is less than _ YOU as a function of _ Y times SUFFERING ___ minus ___ the scalar product of THE and GOOD as a function of x "

or shorter:

" F of YOU is less than Y of _ YOU times SUFFERING ___ minus ___ X of THE dot GOOD "


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And math is fine in poetry (copied from various websites) :

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This one is untitled and was written by Leigh Mercer:

(((12 + 144 + 20 + (3 * 4^-2))) / 7)+(5*11) = 9^2 + 0

When written out:

A Dozen, a Gross and a Score,
plus three times the square root of four,
divided by seven,
plus five times eleven,
is nine squared and not a bit more


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__Saint Ives__ by Mother Goose

As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives,
Every wife had seven sacks,
Every sack had seven cats,
Every cat had seven kits,
Kits, cats, sacks, wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?


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__A New Solution to an Old Problem__ by Eleanor Ninestein

The Topologist's child was quite hyper
Until placed in a Moebius diaper.
Her mess on the inside
Was thus on the outside
Which made it quite easy to wipe her.

[Truerenigma]

Yep. Math is fine. It is best to write/spell it all out though. Is "X" ex, or times or by as in four by four. Of course you're not really going to spell out ex, but algebraic figures and variables could be in quotes or Italics. And Try to have your equation make sense, and be solvable. As in have one correct answer. Well, there could be two and still make sense I suppose--one numerical, and one poetical.

[crow]

Excellent responses. I hadn't expected such clarity! Just goes to show how great this forum is.