the poetic line
I want to posit a question. Or posit an idea that in itself presents a question. Perhaps many questions. It depends on how seriously you take the idea of the poetic ear.
Take this phrase that I have been playing around with (unfortunately to little fruition):
| time well spent in the cereal aisle |
Except, that's not the phrase I'm playing with. This is:
| time spent well in the cereal aisle |
There is a world of difference between those two phrases, entirely because of how they work on the ear. The latter has an aural resonance that is wholly lacking in the former. Why? What am I talking about? Break it down:
|
time spent well in the cereal aisle spent well ------- cereal aisle speh / ell ---------- see / ayl seh / ell ----------- see / ayl |
So that you can read it without going back up, and hear what is going on:
| time well spent in the cereal aisle |
vs.
| time spent well in the cereal aisle |
Do you hear the aural construction that is created by reversing the order of "well spent"?
