a question on english

Greetings!

they are acually two, but they are quick questions, probably silly.

One question is on account of scansion, which i am trying to learn right now. The problem is with the decameter jambic, said to be the most important metric form, which I have found already in two different forms defined, in one it is said to be 5 jambic foots in sequence, in another it is said that the odd syllables are unstressed. Since they are not igual definitions, i am confused. Which one is the true one?

Another one is a question out of curiosity: why such words as fag, nigger are considered offensive? I tried to find their meanings in diccionaries, most of them confessdly obscure diccionaries, but all I could find is definitions like that offensive (with the size, the inclination, the boldness, and the periphrastic adverds that usually accompanies them varying greatly from book to book) What to they have, if they have anything, that makes them offensive? Is it purelly semantic pervesion?

cordially
a barbarian

They are the same definition. Iambs go like this: u- (unstressed, stressed)

so you’d have: u- u- u- u- u-

Another one is a question out of curiosity: why such words as fag, nigger are considered offensive? I tried to find their meanings in diccionaries, most of them confessdly obscure diccionaries, but all I could find is definitions like that > offensive > (with the size, the inclination, the boldness, and the periphrastic adverds that usually accompanies them varying greatly from book to book) What to they have, if they have anything, that makes them offensive? Is it purelly semantic pervesion?

If at a certain time a word is used pejoratively by the masses against a group, later on down the road, once the masses realize that they should not have been persecuting the group, the word itself, a symbol of the persecution, becomes taboo.

thanks for the reply.

I have to bounce it back thought, for, in saying the odds are unstressed, it could appear something like this “uuuuuuuuuu”

I will take for granted it is the first def. :sunglasses:

No, that would be all syllables unstressed, which can’t happen in Latin.

again, for sake of clearness, (for I do not like misunderstandings) in uuuuuuuuuuu, all are unstressed, in particular all odds are unstressed, therefore satisfies the definition, as do also the sequence of jambes, for the odds are all unstresses, beside the fact that the even are stressed, as do also things like u-uuuuuu-u or uuu-u-u-uu in which the odds are unstreessed, even if there are floating streeses. “odds are unstressed” does not say anything about the evens, it is a genus that comports these many species.

Only is implied.