Varied Meter & Cumulative Rhyme in "There Was an Old Dragon Who Swallowed a Knight" | BookLook

[@monapease2972]

This is right on for a story I'm writing now. Thank you. And thank you for reminding us of word choice..."every detail counts"

[@LyricalLanguageLab]

Yup -- every single word has to be THE word. :)

[@suzannepurvis]

Thank you for sharing such a fun and informative book.

[@LyricalLanguageLab]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@rediff9819]

👍👍

[@mitchelllinda9115]

I love how this book has lots of vocabulary to learn in the fun and funny in this book.

[@LyricalLanguageLab]

YES! Penny doesn't shy away from some elevated vocabulary, which I love. :)

[@buffysilverman2365]

I think the song has a slightly different stress on the refrain than the way you read it... I don't know WHY (Stressed, 2 unstressed, stressed.) Don't think the difference matters though. Thanks for these great videos.

[@LyricalLanguageLab]

So the song stresses "I" instead of DON'T? That's odd. Admittedly, I only looked at the written rhyme and did not listen to the song, also because things always change when sung. But on paper, I read it iambic ... and also I'm not sure why one would stress the "I" in that line. Hmm...

[@hifiunicorn]

How much do you think children's authors actually pay attention to this? Trying to nail down the meter for this rhyme feels forced..it seems more whimsical to me or dare I say lax. Atleast that's my intuition about this kind of rhyme book...but I could be wrong about this. It's just not "proper" in the way that my body needs it to be. It just is what it is... somewhere between a rhyme and a lyrical picture poem... BTW, have u ever done one of these about the cat in the hat? That would be my request 🙏🎩

[@LyricalLanguageLab]

Children's authors who are excellent rhymers pay a LOT of attention to this. You can't be lax about rhyme. Varied meter or metrical variations are very common, and even desirable to keep your text from getting too sing-songy and annoying. As for Cat in the Hat, no -- I am not a fan of Dr. Seuss and actually find his meter wanting in places.