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I've just been looking through the archives. It is a standard process I go through after being away for a while and then coming back to read what I've missed...

My attention was drawn to that whole Iambic Pentameter insult game in Feb 2006... and it looked to me like Ozy and Millie were in fact doing it wrong.


Then of course it occurred to me... they're probably both speaking in different accents to my own (I'm British, London-based, and speak somewhat BBC English) and thus pronouncing the words differently with different syllables stressed. It left me rather amused that potentially, what could be Iambic Pentameter with one accent could totally fail to be so with another... right?


As such... I'm still trying to figure out what D.C's accent sounds like by pronouncing what they're saying in an Iambic manner... It is proving awkward, to put it lightly.

It has to rhyme?

It has to rhyme?

Nope.
Iambic Pentameter doesn't have to rhyme at all.
It is based on unstressed and stressed syllables in sequence... five of each (pentameter)...

The problem with accent however occurs with particular words...
For instant... Yogurt.

Americans pronounce it: "YO-gurt" ... with more emphasis on the first syllable.
Brits generally pronounce it "Yog-URT" ... with more emphasis on the latter syllable.

As such, for correct iambic pentameter... the word could be used for the first and second syllables if pronouncing it the British way, or with the second and third if pronouncing it the American way...

In American tomato and potato rhyme, in English they don't. So any rhyme using those words would fail in English. And it's a sign that the two languages are drifting apart.

This is in fact normal in the evolution of languages. It's happened before, and not just with stress but also with pronunciation. In some dialects words start to rhyme or share another property, in others they keep their old properties.

I remember one example showed a text in Old Norwegian:

Reið kveða rossum vesta,
Reginn sló sverðit besta.

Germanic poetry is often alliterative, rhyming not with the ends of words but with the beginnings (in this case it's actually both). The alliteration here is in the r's at the start: reið rossum reginn. Now, Old Norwegian lost the h from rossum, the original word being hrossum. However Old Icelandic still had the h, so if you translated this into Old Icelandic the alliteration would break and no longer work.

In American tomato and potato rhyme, in English they don't. So any rhyme using those words would fail in English. And it's a sign that the two languages are drifting apart.

They have been drifting apart, but the trend is partially reversed by the mainstreaming of culture, as DCS cited with regard to Isolde's lack of a font-denoted accent.

In American tomato and potato rhyme, in English they don't. So any rhyme using those words would fail in English. And it's a sign that the two languages are drifting apart.

They have been drifting apart, but the trend is partially reversed by the mainstreaming of culture, as DCS cited with regard to Isolde's lack of a font-denoted accent.

I'd say we're dealing with perhaps a sigmoid curve there...
Afterall... while television has done much to americanise parts of the native English langauge (and somewhat less to Anglicise the american common language).... one must not forget that most Internet content is in text form and thus loses that influence upon accent.

That said... the Internet in part spawns the gradual birth of new languages in its own right... much of which is completely non-vocal by nature. Attempts to vocalise it of course will differ depending on the native accents of those making the attempts.



In fact... on that very subject, I'm not afraid to admit that my girlfriend and I communicate primarily in a bizarre mixture of Feline (miawing) and Lolcat... and I'm not talking about text here.

You should also not underestimate the influence perscribed spelling has on pronunciation. Ideally, pronunciation is what dictates spelling and not the other way around. But unfortunately most people seem to think that spelling is 'the right way' and try to pronounce what they read rather than write what they pronounce. And so, we're stuck with the excesses of over 500 years of language evolution in English spelling.

I am more familiar with dactylic hexameter, which is used in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

I am more familiar with dactylic hexameter, which is used in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

You are one of those language specialist sorts, aren't you? *Blinks*

^_^

I am more familiar with dactylic hexameter, which is used in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

You are one of those language specialist sorts, aren't you? *Blinks*

^_^

Yep.

With a knowledge of a few Spanish swear words, a rusty knowledge of Ancient Greek, a working knowledge of French, learning Latin, and a future desire to learn Sanskrit and possibly Chinese or Quechua.

Yep.

With a knowledge of a few Spanish swear words, a rusty knowledge of Ancient Greek, a working knowledge of French, learning Latin, and a future desire to learn Sanskrit and possibly Chinese or Quechua.

... Chinese?
Mandarin or Cantonese.... or both?

Awesome languages. I can't understand a word of either, but I can tell them apart at least... due to the watching of many Kung Fu films.

The US and the UK: Two countries separated by a common language.

And a sodding great ocean, thank Christ!

And a sodding great ocean, thank Christ!

We feel the same way over here. You Brits are scary. Especially you!

The US and the UK: Two countries separated by a common language.

And a sodding great ocean, thank Christ!

If plate tectonics had feelings, they would just have been hurt.
Credit where credit is due and all that.

Yes, thanks to tectonics, we are moving farther apart, and the U.S. (along with the rest of North and South America) is drawing nearer to Asia (and Australia), though it seems Hawaii and a few other great places are going to get squeezed. Then they'll be saying "Get those creepy Americans away from us!"

Though at this point in time, the only thing distances do is affect the length of the flight over.