today's idle writer's thought

[magicicada]

is firth a word?

yes, i could check a dictionary, but i'm at work and trying not to get distracted. (yea, like running over to lj is a good tactic). anyways, i think it means something like earth, poetic license and all that jazz.

yes, the free verse writer is attempting a sonnet. the really scary thing is how many of my lines were already 10 syllables. scarier yet, those were the ones that 'sounded better'. ye gods, perhaps it is time i got myself some formal education on this stuff.

Comments

[auryn29a.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's a word. If I'm reading this right it's another word for a ford.

[ivan23.livejournal.com]

It's certainly a word in Scots dialect. It refers to a long, narrow inlet of the sea, such as the famous Firth of Forth.

[gardenwaltz.livejournal.com]

hmm... i think i would have been more comfortable with it being a nonexistent word than one with a contrary meaning. i'm looking for a word for land and coming up with a sea word. argh, and i never never ever use a word without meaning it. back to the thesaurus i go, with the correct meaning it's just plain weird:

Bare travesties of branches span the breadth, (10)
Revealing the strength of their roots, of earth. (10)
Each thing becomes again its finest self. (10)
Above warming air, below stirring firth [NOT], (10)

[gardenwaltz.livejournal.com]

well what do you know. all kinds of meanings out there which are *not* conveniently the one i need. oh well, back to the drawing board.

[tealfroglette.livejournal.com]

wierd is sometimes good, but yes, frustrating when you want the word to mean what essence is hanging about in your mind.

there's worth, birth, dirth, now what exactly is dirth, my mind has fairy picture associated with that, but doesn't seem right.

then there's girth which could be used to describe a round globe...

hmm. okay toad type joke of fort worth is not helping.

good luck.

[songdancer.livejournal.com]

The closest I found is "turf", which isn't a precise rhyme.

(So far I've found alluvium, clay, clod, coast, compost, deposit, dirt, dry land, dust, fill, glebe, gravel, humus, land, loam, marl, mold, muck, mud, peat moss, sand, shore, sod, soil, subsoil, surface, terra firma, terrain, terrane, topsoil, turf)

[gardenwaltz.livejournal.com]

damn, that is an exact match to what i needed. however, i already changed it to 'forth' and then changed the entire line several times to fix meaning.

here we go:
Bare travesties of branches span the breadth, (10)
Revealing the strength of their roots, of earth. (10)
Each thing becomes again its finest self. (10)
Earth's bounty again is shuddering forth, (10)

i think earth and forth are somewhat warped rhymes, but for a vers libre poet, it will do.