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How I am enjoying your new role of pedanticula, Ermie! And I think you're right to insist on rigor here. If poets aren't scrupulous about language, we might as well surrender to the politicians, no? As it happens, you're right, period, in terms of sacred connotations (at least, going by English etymology): "verset" and "versicle" both continue to have standard entries as English terms in _Webster's 10th Collegiate_ (the industry standard), although of course they trickled down into English way back when. More to the point, both have retained their "sacred little verse" senses (and as their primary meanings, no less). "Verset," interestingly enough, has come to refer mainly to brief verses of the Koran, while "versicle" continues to, um, tolerate wider confessional usages. BUT "versicle" also harks back etymologically to _versus_, hence to the very cursivity of rivers, snakes, and lines of writing that _turn_ (rather than "break") as they proceed from right to left across the page. So everybody wins, gets to be right, etc., except those who, like me, really wanted to give popsicular poetry a whirl-- Candice on 5/21/01 4:20 PM, Clitennestra Giordan at [log in to unmask] wrote: > An interpretation, however original, eminent and/or respectable, can by no > means replace the exact definition of a classic rhetorical figure of speech > or of an philologically/historically founded literary term. > > These things do not shift according to individual psychologies, and however > appealing the suggested image of a run-on line resembling a serpent, a boa, > or a river , I am pretty sure that a "versiculo" is and will be > a "versetto", (those that compose the Bible ). That is a versiculo. > (English have eliminated the diminutive element of versi-culo,(they say > verse) but it still remains a short verse (that does end and is regulated > by given rhythms). > Yet, we might wish to refer back to the history of a given word to obtain > not only the meaning of a specific literary term, but also its varying > applications though time and space. A "versiculo" might end by becoming a > piece of prose, in given countries, why not. > But this is all together another issue. I might have already three new > different definitions for versiculo". One of which is the Neapolitan versi- > culo (turpiloquio gratuito?...) > > No need to blame Pulcinella Cetrulo for this original XVII Century version > of “versiculo”.