A little amuse bouche before dinner.
Over on Indiana Auditions, someone asks the seemingly harmless question:

How do you recite Shakespeare?

Various people weigh in with their experiences and helpful suggestions, and all goes well until... the vexed question of meter comes up:

Mr Antrobus suggests throwing out the meter to start with.

emily counters that "most of it is written in iambic pentameter for a reason".

Daniel begs to differ, "Au contraire, Emily."

emily's not about to take this lying down, since, "i spent 6 months studying with the rsc in stratford. i know what i'm talking about." (Yes, but do you know what the shift key is for, dear.)

tcrick's there to back her up, gently suggesting that, "whenever I see a passage that is prefaced by a trite romance language phrase I am immediately skeptical of any ensuing discourse as pretentious, patronizing pontification by an ill-informed or ignorant writer." (Love the alliteration!)

The OP tries to bring ~~balance to the force~~ peace, pleading, "Please don't fight. It's just theatre, fer cripes!" (Stop spoiling our fun!)

And Daniel retreats faster than a Frenchman.

I realise that this doesn't have as much TMI as your usual otf post, so let me mention in passing this odd pain I've had in my side for the last week and a half. I think it might be pancreatitis.

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	the_mouse 2007-05-23 05:09 am UTC (link)
	I heard something along those lines- that American English is closer to how English in Britain used to be pronounced, before they got a king that talked funny... is this actually true? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rimrunner 2007-05-23 06:05 am UTC (link)
	I don't know, but I've heard the same thing about Appalachian accents. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sorchar 2007-05-23 06:35 pm UTC (link)
	That's what I always heard too - at least before TV came into wide use and broadcasters began setting up the neutral accent as the ideal. There's still quite an accent back there, though - all I have to do is talk to one of my relatives on the phone for a few minutes and nobody around here can understand a damn thing I say for the better part of an hour afterward. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	moiety 2007-05-24 10:55 pm UTC (link)
	I'd heard that too. And as a Texan, besides. (Reply to this)(Parent)

janegraddell
2007-05-23 01:48 pm UTC (link)

Yep. Well, I don't know about the funny-talking king, because my interest in most history stops around 1642.

But it is true that the New World was being settled in the 1600s, and the settlers brought their Elizabethan/Jacobean accents with them. Over time, most of the accents changed and morphed and diversified, etc., but in Texas and in some places in Appalachia the accent honestly hasn't changed that much in the last 400 years.

At least, that seems to be the case based on what academics think Elizabethan pronunciation sounded like, so, you know, grain of salt and all that. But I have heard tapes of Shakespeare read with what's thought to be the original pronunciation, and it's a lot closer to Dallas than London.

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