A line in the middle of a word is

It turns out every space in the post was a non-breaking space! It looked like this when I saved it to disk:

A and B were involved in negotiations. A was in a superior position, but there was one and new unfavourable condition that if B knew about, would put A in a huge disadvantage.

Copying and pasting the text fixed it, because my browser copied the non-breaking spaces into the clipboard as regular spaces. (That’s why I had such a hard time figuring out what was wrong!)

Apparently this happens when the OP composes a post in Evernote and copies it to the official Android SE app. So the OP can avoid doing that, and if it happens again anyone can fix the posts by copying and pasting all the text in the browser field (which accepts only plain text as opposed to the app)!

Problem solved!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A line is a unit of language into which a poem or play is divided. The use of a line operates on principles which are distinct from and not necessarily coincident with grammatical structures, such as the sentence or single clauses in sentences. Although the word for a single poetic line is verse, that term now tends to be used to signify poetic form more generally.^[1] A line break is the termination of the line of a poem and the beginning of a new line.

The process of arranging words using lines and line breaks is known as lineation, and is one of the defining features of poetry.^[2] A distinct numbered group of lines in verse is normally called a stanza. A title, in some poems, is considered a line.

General conventions in Western poetry[edit]

Conventions that determine what might constitute line in poetry depend upon different constraints, aural characteristics or scripting conventions for any given language. On the whole, where relevant, a line is generally determined either by units of rhythm or repeating aural patterns in recitation that can also be marked by other features such as rhyme or alliteration, or by patterns of syllable-count.^[3]

In Western literary traditions, use of line is arguably the principal feature which distinguishes poetry from prose. Even in poems where formal metre or rhyme is weakly observed or absent, the convention of line continues on the whole to be observed, at least in written representations, although there are exceptions (see Degrees of license). In such writing, simple visual appearance on a page (or any other written layout) remains sufficient to determine poetic line, and this sometimes leads to the suggestion that the work in question is no longer a poem but «chopped up prose».^[4] A dropped line is a line broken into two parts, with the second indented to remain visually sequential.

In the standard conventions of Western literature, the line break is usually but not always at the left margin. Line breaks may occur mid-clause, creating enjambment, a term that literally means ‘to straddle’. Enjambment «tend[s] to increase the pace of the poem»,^[5] whereas end-stopped lines, which are lines that break on caesuras (thought-pauses^[6] often represented by ellipsis), emphasize these silences and slow the poem down.^[5]

Line breaks may also serve to signal a change of movement or to suppress or highlight certain internal features of the poem, such as a rhyme or slant rhyme.
Line breaks can be a source of dynamism, providing a method by which poetic forms imbue their contents with intensities and corollary meanings that would not have been possible to the same degree in other forms of text.

Distinct forms of line, as defined in various verse traditions, are usually categorised according to different rhythmical, aural or visual patterns and metrical length appropriate to the language in question. (See Metre.)

One visual convention that is optionally used to convey a traditional use of line in printed settings is capitalisation of the first letter of the first word of each line regardless of other punctuation in the sentence, but it is not necessary to adhere to this. Other formally patterning elements, such as end-rhyme, may also strongly indicate how lines occur in verse.

In the speaking of verse, a line ending may be pronounced using a momentary pause, especially when its metrical composition is end-stopped, or it may be elided such that the utterance can flow seamlessly over the line break in what can be called run-on.

Degrees of license[edit]

In more «free» forms, and in free verse in particular, conventions for the use of line become, arguably, more arbitrary and more visually determined such that they may only be properly apparent in typographical representation and/or page layout.

One extreme deviation from a conventional rule for line can occur in concrete poetry where the primacy of the visual component may over-ride or subsume poetic line in the generally regarded sense, or sound poems in which the aural component stretches the concept of line beyond any purely semantic coherence.

At another extreme, the prose poem simply eschews poetic line altogether.

Examples of line breaks[edit]

scolds Forbid
den Stop
Must
n’t Don’t

The line break ‘must/n’t’ allows a double reading of the word as both ‘must’ and ‘mustn’t’, whereby the reader is made aware that old age both enjoins and forbids the activities of youth. At the same time, the line break subverts ‘mustn’t’: the forbidding of a certain activity—in the poem’s context, the moral control the old try to enforce upon the young—only serves to make that activity more enticing.

While Cummings’s line breaks are used in a poetic form that is intended to be appreciated through a visual, printed medium, line breaks are also present in poems predating the advent of printing.

Shakespeare[edit]

Examples are to be found, for instance, in Shakespeare’s sonnets. Here are two examples of this technique operating in different ways in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline:

In the first example, the line break between the last two lines cuts them apart, emphasizing the cutting off of the head:

With his own sword,

Which he did wave against my throat, I have ta’en

His head from him.

In the second example, the text before the line break retains a meaning in isolation from the contents of the new line. This meaning is encountered by the reader before it being modified by the text after the line break, which clarifies that, instead of «I, as a person, as a mind, am ‘absolute,'» it ‘really’ means: «I am absolutely sure it was Cloten»:

I am absolute;
‘Twas very Cloten.

Metre[edit]

In every type of literature there is a metrical pattern that can be described as «basic» or even «national»^{[dubious – discuss]}. The most famous and widely used line of verse in English prosody is the iambic pentameter,^[7] while one of the most common of traditional lines in surviving classical Latin and Greek prosody was the hexameter.^[8] In modern Greek poetry hexameter was replaced by line of fifteen syllables. In French poetry alexandrine^[9] is the most typical pattern. In Italian literature the hendecasyllable,^[10] which is a metre of eleven syllables, is the most common line. In Serbian ten syllable lines were used in long epic poems. In Polish poetry two types of line were very popular, an 11-syllable one, based on Italian verse and 13-syllable one, based both on Latin verse and French alexandrine. Classical Sanskrit poetry, such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, was most famously composed using the shloka.

• English iambic pentameter:

Like to Ahasuerus, that shrewd prince,

I will begin — as is, these seven years now,

My daily wont — and read a History

(Written by one whose deft right hand was dust

To the last digit, ages ere my birth)

Of all my predecessors, Popes of Rome:

For though mine ancient early dropped the pen,

Yet others picked it up and wrote it dry,

Since of the making books there is no end.

(Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book 10, Book The Pope, lines 1-9)

• Latin hexameter:

Arma virumque canō, Trōiae quī prīmus ab orīs

Ītaliam, fātō profugus, Lāvīniaque vēnit

lītora, multum ille et terrīs iactātus et altō

vī superum saevae memorem Iūnōnis ob īram;

multa quoque et bellō passūs, dum conderet urbem,

inferretque deōs Latiō, genus unde Latīnum,

Albānīque patrēs, atque altae moenia Rōmae.

(Virgil, Aeneid, Book I, lines 1-7)

• French alexandrine:

Comme je descendais des Fleuves impassibles,

Je ne me sentis plus guidé par les haleurs :

Des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles,

Les ayant cloués nus aux poteaux de couleurs.

(Arthur Rimbaud, Le bateau ivre, lines 1-4)

• Italian hendecasyllable:

Per me si va ne la città dolente,

per me si va ne l’etterno dolore,

per me si va tra la perduta gente.

Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore;

fecemi la divina podestate,

la somma sapïenza e ’l primo amore.

(Dante Alighieri, Divina commedia, Inferno, Canto III, lines 1-6)

Pioneers of the freer use of line in Western culture include Whitman and Apollinaire.

Characteristics[edit]

Where the lines are broken in relation to the ideas in the poem it affects the feeling of reading the poetry. For example, the feeling may be jagged or startling versus soothing and natural, which can be used to reinforce or contrast the ideas in the poem. Lines are often broken between words, but there is certainly a great deal of poetry where at least some of the lines are broken in the middles of words: this can be a device for achieving inventive rhyme schemes.

In general, line breaks divide the poetry into smaller units called lines, (this is a modernisation of the term verse) which are often interpreted in terms of their self-contained meanings and aesthetic values: hence the term «good line». Line breaks, indentations, and the lengths of individual words determine the visual shape of the poetry on the page, which is a common aspect of poetry but never the sole purpose of a line break. A dropped line is a line broken into two parts, in which the second part is indented to remain visually sequential through spacing. In metric poetry, the places where the lines are broken are determined by the decision to have the lines composed from specific numbers of syllables.

Prose poetry is poetry without line breaks in accordance to paragraph structure as opposed to stanza. Enjambment is a line break in the middle of a sentence, phrase or clause, or one that offers internal (sub)text or rhythmically jars for added emphasis. Alternation between enjambment and end-stopped lines is characteristic of some complex and well composed poetry, such as in Milton’s Paradise Lost.

A new line can begin with a lowercase or capital letter. New lines beginning with lowercase letters vaguely correspond with the shift from earlier to later poetry: for example, the poet John Ashbery usually begins his lines with capital letters prior to his 1991 book-length poem «Flow-Chart», whereas in and after «Flow-Chart» he almost invariably begins lines with lowercase letters unless the beginning of the line is also the beginning of a new sentence. There is, however, some much earlier poetry where new lines begin with lowercase letters.

Beginning a line with an uppercase letter when the beginning of the line does not coincide with the beginning of a new sentence is referred to by some as «majusculation». (this is an invented term derived from majuscule).
The correct term is a coroneted verse.

In T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, where ambiguity abounds, a line break in the opening (ll. 5–7) starts things off.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

Because the lines start with capitalized letters, Eliot could be saying «Earth» as the planet or «earth» as the soil.

See also[edit]

• Active listening
• Caesura
• Canons of page construction
• Ellipsis
• Enjambment
• Graphic design
• Part (music)
• Pausa
• Principles of organization
• Repetition (music)
• Run-on sentence

References[edit]

Rhyme Definition

What is rhyme? Here’s a quick and simple definition:

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words. Rhyming is particularly common in many types of poetry, especially at the ends of lines, and is a requirement in formal verse. The most familiar and widely-used form of rhyming is perfect rhyme, in which the stressed syllables of the words, along with all subsequent syllables, share identical sounds, as in «pencil» and «stencil.» Perfect rhyme is so common, in fact, that the word «rhyme» is often used simply to refer to perfect rhymes. However, there are actually a variety of other types of rhymes, such as imperfect rhyme or slant rhyme, which also involve the repetition of similar sounds but in ways that are not quite as precise as perfect rhyme.

Some additional key details about rhyme:

• Rhyme is used in poetry, as well as in songwriting, not just because it’s pleasant to hear, but because the repetition of sounds (especially when it’s consistent) lends a sense of rhythm and order to the language.
• Contrary to what many people think, words don’t have to share perfectly identical sounds in order to qualify as a type of rhyme. Many words that share similar sounds—including some words that only share a single letter—fall into one of the categories of rhyme we describe below.
• Poems that use rhymes at the end of each line often do so according to a repeating, predetermined pattern called a rhyme scheme.

Rhyme Pronunciation

Here’s how to pronounce rhyme: rime

Types of Rhyme

Most people, when they think about what constitutes a rhyme, are actually thinking about one type of rhyme in particular, called perfect rhyme, which only includes words with identical sounds like «game» and «tame,» or «table» and «fable.» But in fact, rhyme is a rather broad and loosely-defined literary device that includes many different types of repetition of sounds between words. Not only are there many different types of rhyme, there are also many different ways of categorizing the different types of rhymes. The sections that follow cover all the different ways there are to categorize of rhyme.

Classifying Rhymes by Stressed and Unstressed Syllables

Perfect rhymes and imperfect rhymes are two important types of rhyme that are defined according to the sounds that they share as well as where the rhyme falls in relation to the stressed syllable in each word (that is, the syllable that receives the emphasis, such as «fine» in the word «de-fine«). Here’s the definition of each, with examples:

• Perfect Rhymes include words whose stressed syllables share identical sounds, as do all sounds that follow the stressed syllable. The words «compare» and «despair» are perfect rhymes because both have final stressed syllables with identical sounds. The words «plunder» and «thunder» are also perfect rhymes because both their first stressed syllable and the syllable after it share common sounds.
• Imperfect Rhymes include words that rhyme the stressed syllable of one word with the unstressed syllable of another word, as in «uptown» and «frown,» or «painting» and «ring.»

Classifying Rhymes by Sound

Another way of classifying types of rhymes focuses more on sound than it does on stressed syllables:

• Assonance, while also sometimes defined as its own figure of speech, assonance can also be described as a type of rhyme involving the repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds, as in «roof» and «tooth,» or «wow» and «sound.»
• Consonance, like assonance, is often described as a figure of speech in its own right. But it can also be described as a type of rhyme involving the repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds, as in «cut» and «mate,» or «half» and «file.»
• Alliteration is often treated as a figure of speech, but can also be categorized as a type of rhyme. It is a specialized form of consonance or assonance involving the repetition of the same sounds (consonant or vowel) either at the beginning of words or in the stressed syllable of words, as in «Peter Piper picked a pint of pickled peppers.»
• Slant Rhyme is similar to consonance and assonance in that it involves the repetition of similar consonants or vowel sounds, but slant rhyme requires the repeated sounds to occur in the final syllables of words, as in «poncho» and «crunchy,» or «crate» and «braid.» This type of rhyme is a bit more technical in its definition than this short description, so for a more in-depth understanding it might be worthwhile to take a look at the entry on slant rhyme.
• Pararhyme is defined as «perfect consonance,» meaning that all the consonants in two or more words are the same, as in «leaves» and «loves.»
• Forced rhyme is a type of «near-rhyme» that include words with a close but imperfect match in sound in the final syllables, especially when a word is spelled abnormally in order to make the rhyme work, as in «truth» and «endu’th» (a contraction of «endureth»). Forced rhyme tends to make use of other rhyming devices like assonance and consonance, so it overlaps in many cases with the definition slant rhyme, but forced rhyme is a much broader and loosely-defined term that can be used to apply to any type of near-rhyme in the final syllables of a word.
  • The term «forced rhyme» is also sometimes used to refer to rhymes that use an awkward or unnatural syntax in order to «force» a rhyme at the end of a line. An example of this is «I gave my love to you my dear, / Cruel words from me you’ll never hear» because the second line has so obviously been rearranged in order to make the rhyme work (the syntax we would expect to hear is «You’ll never hear cruel words from me»).
• Semirhyme is a rhyme in which two words share an identical sound but one of the words has an extra syllable at the end, as in «time» and «climbing.»
• Eye Rhymes don’t actually share any of the same sounds, but they look as though they should because they have the same spelling. Examples of eye rhyme include any words that look the same but sound different, as in «rough» and «cough,» or «Christ» and «wrist.»
• Identical Rhymes are just the opposite of eye rhymes: they include words that sound exactly the same but look different, as in «two» and «too,» or «ball» and «bawl.»
• Monorhyme is the term used for a poem that uses a single rhyme throughout. In other words, the rhyme scheme for a monorhyming poem would just be AAAA, etc

Classifying Rhymes by Their Placement Within Lines

In addition to the categories above, which describe rhymes based on the types of sounds they have in common, rhymes can also be described by their location within a line of poetry.

• End rhyme is any rhyme that occurs at the end of a line of verse, in the final word or syllables. This is by far the most common type of rhyme used in poetry. An example would be, «Roses are red, violets are blue, / Sugar is sweet, and so are you.»
• Internal rhymes are rhyming words that do not occur at the ends of lines. An example would be «I drove myself to the lake / and dove into the water.»
• Broken rhymes are rhymes in which one word is divided across lines (usually with a hyphen) in order to make it rhyme with another word. This is pretty uncommon, but it’s not unheard of.
• Cross rhyme is a rhyme where a word at the end of a line rhymes with another word in the middle of a different line.

These categories are generally used in conjunction with the categories we’ve already covered, not instead of them. So, for instance, a certain rhyme might be described as «internal pararhyme,» or «identical end rhyme.»

Classifying Rhymes by Emphasis

Rhymes aren’t only classified by whether their stressed syllables rhyme. They can also be classified according to location of the stressed syllables within the rhymed words:

• Single: a perfect or slant rhyme in which the emphasis falls on the last syllable, as in «stop» and «mop,» or «compare» and «despair.»
• Double: a perfect or slant rhyme in which the emphasis falls on the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable, as in «plunder» and «thunder.»
• Dactylic: a perfect or slant rhyme in which the emphasis falls on the third-to-last syllable, as in «indicate» and «vindicate.»

Rhyme and Rhyme Scheme

In formal verse (which is the name given to rhymed poetry that uses a strict meter), end rhymes typically repeat according to a pattern called a rhyme scheme. Rhyme schemes are described using letters of the alphabet, so that each line of verse that corresponds to a specific type of rhyme used in the poem is assigned a letter, beginning with «A.» For example, a four-line poem in which the first line rhymes with the third, and the second line rhymes with the fourth has the rhyme scheme ABAB, as in the lines below from the poem To Anthea, who may Command him Anything by Robert Herrick:

Bid me to weep, and I will weep
While I have eyes to see
And having none, yet I will keep
A heart to weep for thee

Although all formal verse poems have some sort of rhyme scheme, certain forms of poetry have a pre-determined rhyme scheme, such as the sonnet or the villanelle. Poets wanting to write such poems have to match the rhyme scheme they use to that defined by the type of poem in question.

Rhyme Examples

Perfect Rhyme in John Milton’s «When I consider how my light is spent»

Each rhyme in this famous sonnet by Milton is an example of perfect rhyme (words whose stressed syllables share identical sounds, as well as all sounds that follow the stressed syllable).

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Internal Rhyme and Alliteration in Edgar Allen Poe’s «The Raven»

Poe’s famous poem uses internal rhyme in addition to end rhyme—and also makes heavy use of alliteration. Examples of alliteration are bolded, while examples of internal rhyme are highlighted.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

Eye Rhyme in Shakespeare’s «Sonnet 35»

Eye rhymes (rhymes that sound different but use the same spelling) are far more common in English verse prior to the 19th century, when the convention fell out of favor with many writers. Also worth nothing is that many older examples of eye rhyme occur not because the author originally intended them but because the way that words are pronounced changes over time.

All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are…

Slant Rhyme in Yeats’ «Lines Written in Dejection»

This poem by W.B. Yeats gives an example of slant rhyme, since «moon» and «on» don’t rhyme perfectly but end in the same consonant, while «bodies» and «ladies» don’t use the same sounds in their stressed syllables, but end with identical unstressed syllables. Here are the first four lines of the poem:

When have I last looked on
The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies
Of the dark leopards of the moon?
All the wild witches, those most noble ladies

Notice, too, the poet’s use of alliteration in the phrase «wild witches.»

Slant Rhyme in Big Daddy Kane’s «Wrath of Kane»

It’s pretty common for songwriters to use slant rhymes in addition to perfect rhymes—especially in rap. This 1989 track by Big Daddy Kane gives an expert example of complex rhyme that makes use of dactylic as well as double slant rhyme. If that’s confusing, don’t worry—all you need to know is that these slant rhymes are almost perfect (meaning they use assonance instead of identical sounds). The first highlighted example is dactylic because the final three syllables of both lines rhyme and have the same stress pattern (stressed-unstressed-stressed), whereas the second highlighted example is double because the final two syllables of the lines rhyme and also share the same stress pattern (stressed-unstressed).

The heat is on so feel the fire
Come off the empire, on a more higher
Level than def, one step beyond dope
The suckers all scope and hope to cope but nope
Cause I can never let ’em on top of me
I play ’em out like a game of Monopoly
Let ’em speed around the board like an Astro
Then send ’em to jail for trying to pass Go
Shaking ’em up, breaking ’em up, taking no stuff
But it still ain’t loud enough

Note how Kane here creates his slant rhymes not through simple pairs of words, but by sometimes matching sets of words («on top of me») with single words that make up the same number of syllables («monopoly»).

Forced Rhyme in Milton’s «How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth»

This excerpt from a poem by John Milton is a good example of forced rhyme, since the poet had to alter the spelling of two different words in order to make them seem to rhyme with the word «youth.»

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol’n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew’th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth
That I to manhood am arriv’d so near;
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits endu’th.

«Shew’th» (meaning: «shows») and «endu’th» (meaning: «endures») are the forced rhymes in this example. Notice, too, how the syntax in line 4 is slightly unusual: it would be more natural to have written «But my late spring shows no bud or blossom.» The awkward phrasing of the line is a further indication that the rhyme in it is forced.

Broken Rhyme in Edward Lear’s «How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear»

This example makes unusual use of enjambment (a line break without punctuation) to split the word «nightgown» in half so it rhymes with «white»—an example of broken rhyme. The rhyme scheme here is ABAB.

When he walks in waterproof white,
The children run after him so!
Calling out, «He’s gone out in his night-
Gown, that crazy old Englishman, oh!»

Why Do Writers Use Rhyme?

Writers use rhyme because it makes language sound more beautiful and thoughtfully-composed, like music. Especially in formal verse (since it uses a strict meter), rhymes repeat at regular intervals, dramatically increasing the rhythm and musicality of poetry and thus making it not only more pleasant to listen to but easier to understand and more memorable.

While strict rhyme schemes may have fallen out of favor with many poets writing today—who prefer free verse to the more constraining forms of formal verse—more subtle forms of rhyme (such as assonance) remain ever popular for increasing the aesthetic quality of a poetic composition. In addition to poetry, rhyme is common in riddles, nursery rhymes, jokes, and children’s books, since it also aids in memorization. It’s also common in song lyrics, for many of the same reasons it’s popular in poetry.

Other Helpful Rhyme Resources

• The Wikipedia Page on Rhyme: A somewhat technical explanation, including various helpful examples and some more information about the history of rhyme in various languages and cultures.
• The dictionary definition of Rhyme: A basic definition that includes a bit on the etymology of rhyme.
• Rhymer is a rhyming dictionary—a great online resource for finding different kinds of rhymes for any word.