# make iambic verse out of thread titles **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [April 6, 2012, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-iambic-verse-out-of-thread-titles/618031 "2012-04-06T20:54:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2012, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-iambic-verse-out-of-thread-titles/618031/1 "2012-04-06T20:54:45Z")
F’rinstance: Should I bring a flower? If yes, what kind? Why is Stephen Hawking still alive? These are thoughts that often come to mind While I shop and pee and eat and drive. Take two iambic thread titles (don’t have to be pentameter, though mine are) and add two rhyming lines to complete an iambic quatrain. You could even continue the quatrain, almost indefinitely: Hawking should have died from ALS, flowers are sweet but might offend or scare a girl rather than please or impress, And most die ere a year in a wheelchair. (Final line needs metrical work, I know.) ---
**Author:** ![Randy\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ee7513/32.png) [@Randy\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Randy_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2012, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-iambic-verse-out-of-thread-titles/618031/2 "2012-04-06T21:02:56Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > F’rinstance: > > Should I bring a flower? If yes, what kind? > Why is Stephen Hawking still alive? > These are thoughts that often come to mind > While I shop and pee and eat and drive. > Take two iambic thread titles (don’t have to be pentameter, though mine are) and add two rhyming lines to complete an iambic quatrain. You could even continue the quatrain, almost indefinitely: > > Hawking should have died from ALS, > flowers are sweet but might offend or scare > a girl rather than please or impress, > And most die ere a year in a wheelchair. > > (Final line needs metrical work, I know.) By “iambic” do you mean “trochaic”? ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2012, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-iambic-verse-out-of-thread-titles/618031/3 "2012-04-06T21:26:29Z")
No, they’re iambic with a (very common) inverted first foot. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-iambic-verse-out-of-thread-titles/618031/4 "2012-04-07T01:21:36Z")
Who will speak for Cable softcore porn? Why does everyone hate Chevy Chase? Is he the smuggest actor ever born? I’d watch Jane Curtin sitting on his face. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-iambic-verse-out-of-thread-titles/618031/5 "2012-04-07T01:55:33Z")
Make iambic verse from thread titles? I’m not on Facebook, and never will be– instead, I’ll rearrange my wooden idols floating in tandem on the Iambic Sea. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-iambic-verse-out-of-thread-titles/618031/6 "2012-04-07T17:49:59Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > No, they’re iambic with a (very common) inverted first foot. But few, of your examples just have an inverted first foot. They’re mostly trochaic with a dropped final syllable. Would you call “Tiger, tiger, burning bright/In the forest of the night” iambic? Because it seems to me most of your examples fit that pattern more than “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-iambic-verse-out-of-thread-titles/618031/7 "2012-04-07T17:59:28Z")
To be more precise, your examples are mostly what I would call catalectic trochaic pentameter. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-iambic-verse-out-of-thread-titles/618031/8 "2012-04-07T19:48:14Z")
Interesting. What I’d say is that some are more trochaic than anything, most fit an iambic pattern (and most of those have an inverted first foot), a few are just plain metrically flawed. I’m hardly holding these up as the metrical standard I most in the world wish to defend, so if we’re going to discuss meter, why don’t we start a separate thread and I can use better examples that I will defend. In this thread, all I’m interested in is seeing if anyone can make verse out of thread titles.