# Speaking in iambic pentameter. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 18, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-iambic-pentameter/547157 "2010-07-18T21:38:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Animastryfe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Animastryfe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Animastryfe)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-iambic-pentameter/547157/1 "2010-07-18T21:38:22Z")
I understand that a line in iambic pentameter has five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables. However, if I were to speak in iambic pentameter, how would I get the ‘pentameter’ part across? The iambic part should not be difficult. Would the line concept not be applicable when spoken? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-iambic-pentameter/547157/2 "2010-07-18T21:49:09Z")
In material written in iambic pentameter, there’s generally some correspondence between sentences or other natural divisions of speech and the lines. It might be harder to pull off on the fly, though. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-iambic-pentameter/547157/3 "2010-07-18T21:49:23Z")
I think pausing is the only way to communicate it. Incidentally one of the virtues of iambic pentameter is that its rhythm is not that different from regular speech. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-iambic-pentameter/547157/4 "2010-07-18T22:07:58Z")
I’d suggest it’s often not important. You can’t deliver “To be or not to be” effectively if you’re trying to make sure the audience hears the pentameters, or even the iambs. It works better in “Ozymandias”, but even then, f’rex, the last lines should run: Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-iambic-pentameter/547157/5 "2010-07-18T22:11:54Z")
Blank verse is ordinarily unrhymed iambic pentameter. The majority of Shakespeare’s plays were in fact written in it. Take Hamlet’s soliloquy for a good example: “To be or not to be– that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep No more – and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to – ‘tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause.” It’s dramatic, certainly. And broken out into lines, obviously verse. But it comes very close to being the pattern of normal speech. Or consider the following passage from one of Churchill’s great speeches: “we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be…” Much of that is in iambic pentameter, mixed with anapests. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-iambic-pentameter/547157/6 "2010-07-18T22:20:47Z")
FYI, [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV9hg-TGO0E) is a link to a YouTube video of the “Atomic Shakespeare” episode of the TV series _Moonlighting_. (The episode is a parody of _The Taming of the Shrew_.) The dialog is, more or less, in iambic pentameter. ---
**Author:** ![Animastryfe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Animastryfe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Animastryfe)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-iambic-pentameter/547157/7 "2010-07-18T23:13:32Z")
Thank you all for the replies. This was motivated by this [xkcd](http://xkcd.com/79/) strip, and Questionable Content. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/speaking-in-iambic-pentameter/547157/8 "2010-07-18T23:17:45Z")
It’s actually relatively easy. Start out with a line in iambic pentameter (I use "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships) and just keep up the rhythm. You probably couldn’t do it fast, but you could do it.