This assignment has two parts..

1. Word Senses

In any given language, words are generally well-defined entities, effectively transmitted in text or speech. But as we observed in the lecture notes on Semantics, the meanings of words shift and evolve by means of processes like metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and so on, sometimes in ways that are tied to particular lexical or social contexts. As a result, dictionary-makers (and linguists) usually have a hard time deciding how to divide and define the senses of any given word. This exercise is meant to give you a "sense" of the difficulty of their task.

The Wiktionary entry for the English noun line gives 39 (!) "senses", some of which have multiple subsenses. The Merriam-Webster dictionary, WordNet, and OED entries divide things somewhat differently, though you can see that these are different ways of talking about the same things.

For each of the following 10 text samples from COCA, choose one of the Wiktionary senses/subsenses. You can choose more than one if you think the example is ambiguous or in-between -- and if you think that the needed sense is missing or incomplete, explain why, perhaps with reference to one or more of the other sources. (And since the Wiktionary content may change, please identify each Wiktionary sense by quoting the gloss as well as the number...)

1. Because we caught onto the foreshadowing, that telling line from earlier in the film: "Life isn't always what one likes." We knew then that the movie would end in splitsville.
2. His accuracy is horrible even when the offensive line gives him time. He has poor decision making skills and can't seem to pull the trigger and then when he finally does he is crazy off target. You can tell the frustration Steve Smith and the rest of the receivers have with him.
3. With plastic a person can also buy stamps online or over the telephone, and those who don't have anything in their wallet but cash can still wait in line and buy stamps from a postal clerk.
4. The 1960s-vintage Line 3, one of six Enbridge pipelines across northern Minnesota, operates at only 51 percent capacity due to safety concerns.
5. Bottom line: health care and health insurance is a mess in this country.
6. But so many runners push and push and end up with all sorts of foot and knee problems 20 years down the line.
7. Signs for Pontiac at his dealership had long been removed, and he said, thankfully, he had no more new Pontiacs to unload. "It was a great line," Mr. Lee said, "while it lasted."
8. I also put a coating of snow exactly four feet high, 8 inches wide in a straight line the entire length of the front of my house, across the wall, windows and front door.
9. Mariners love this fleet of early sailing-ship replicas. Purists might prefer the line's smaller vessels, although the five-masted Royal Clipper is so gorgeous under sail, we felt we were flying on Pegasus.
10. Rivera eventually became the owner of her own music and TV production company, a fragrance brand, and a clothing line.

2. Scansion

(a) Which of these lines (each from a different poem) are (or could be) iambic pentameter? Explain your answers briefly.

1. Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
2. When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
3. Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
4. All overgrown by cunning moss,
5. Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
6. Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
7. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
8. Throwing the Ball, with never a catcher in sight.
9. The unpurged images of day recede;
10. The Cloud descended, and the Lily bowd her modest head,

Note that web search will show you the source for each line -- but the question is about the cited line and not the rest of the poem around it.

(b) Scan the following verse in the style demonstrated here:

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;