before 1917, adjectival declension looked quite different, at least in writing; for example, there were special feminine plural forms, as in french. in modern editions of classical poetry some elements of this system are still used if they are important for rhyme or metrics. a notable example is ending (bisyllabic) instead of (monosyllabic) for genitive single female adjectives, which were considered bookish and deprecated even in the times of alexander pushkin but were still used by him in lines such as "" (, iv, l).