Telephone and appointment

In the middle of this list, among the verbs for being heard, sits scandire: to say a thing slowly and distinctly, one syllable at a time. Scandisca un po’ di più is what an Italian asks for on a bad line. The verb comes from Latin scandere, to climb, which in the schoolroom came to mean marking the rise and fall of a line of verse, stepping through its feet one by one. English borrowed that very sense and called it « to scan »; the noun « scansion » still carries it, and to scan a line of poetry is to go through it slowly, marking every beat. Then the English word turned round. From examining a thing closely it slid, in ordinary use, to running an eye over it quickly — to scan a page is now to skim it — and from there to what a machine does at a supermarket till. So the verb that in Italian asks you to slow down is, in English, the one you reach for to say you barely read it. Only « scansion » kept the old pace.