History Main / RealisticDictionisUnrealistic

* ''TheThickOfIt'' emphasises that it isn't ''[[TheWestWing The]]'' [[ClusterFBomb Fucking]] ''[[TheWestWing West Wing]]'' with all the stumbling, repetition, hesitation, waffling, dragging out speech, people talking over and interrupting each other mentioned in the description. Some of the more driven and/or sociopathic characters such as Malcolm Tucker avert it to some degree, though.

** The end of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghPsLcuLHHU&list=FL2UXogbLK-2Awj4CY-vumvg&index=1 this video]] has a bonus round titled: "Breathing, Laughing, and Other Bella Noises"
--> I was worried the movie would water down the book, but all the "okay" "k" exchanges, ''thank god'' have been kept fully intact.

* The ''Film/IronMan'' film features many characters talking over each other at times and repeating what they'd already said. This was in part due to the script, which was largely unfinished during filming, forcing actors to improvise many lines. Robert Downey Jr. improvised a great deal of his dialogue, including his entire Jericho missile speech.

In fiction, characters inevitably come out with well-formed sentences. They may have a poetic flavor filled with Creator/WilliamShakespeare-like [[TalksLikeASimile similes]] and luminous golden metaphors that most people in real life aren't clever enough to come up with on the spot or even at all. They never stumble over their words or say the wrong thing except for [[RuleOfFunny deliberate comedic effect]]. Even "realistic" dialogue is relatively free of errors and padding. It is almost as if it was written by a professional. [[CaptainObvious It really was.]]

* In ''{{Friends}}'', one episode makes fun of Ross's tendency to do this when Rachel dates a guy identical to Ross, named Russ. Both of them occasionally stutter, repeat words, pause between words and use "um" and "uh" a lot.

* In ''Diff'rentStrokes'', Arnold's vocabulary ranges from the innocent eight-year-old he is to someone much more mature when the script calls for it. In some cases, he doesn't know something simple, like what a hot tub is. Another time, he's able to read the small print on a legal notice that informs tenants of their rights, which he is able to articulate to others.

* In ''Series/MASH'', the spontaneous quips by Hawkeye and BJ are so spot-on that they don't sound natural at all, especially in retorts to something Frank has said.

* In ''MASH'', the spontaneous quips by Hawkeye and BJ are so spot-on that they don't sound natural at all, especially in retorts to something Frank has said.
* GameOfThrones: Everyone seems to have just the right witty comeback or appropriate analogy wound up in their pocket, just waiting to be unravelled at the push of a button.

At times characters go beyond fiction-speak, and break out in a [[PatrickStewartSpeech spontaneous eloquent monologue]], [[CharacterFilibuster at length]], especially at moments of high emotion and plot importance, such as HoldingTheFloor. These monologues do happen in RealLife, but they are rare. In educated circles (i.e. the middle classes) these were a lot more common before the twentieth century, when rhetoric was a staple of what education there was and people listened to (and studied, if they were literate) speeches for entertainment.

* ''VideoGame/Portal2'' has this through Wheatley, who (despite being a robot) frequently delves into this and BuffySpeak. Also applies to the damaged cores, who, due to faults, have unique/strange personalities which understandably cause tics and poor diction.

* ''TheWestWing'' is peppered with spontaneous eloquent monologues mixed with seeming breaks into realistic diction. In fact it's such a staple of Creator/AaronSorkin-produced shows that it's called Sorkinese.\\
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It also contains purposeful aversions of Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic -- characters sometimes stop and start over, fail to find the right words, or fall back on generalities ("Don't be the guy who comes in here with half a thing!"). This is even lampshaded on occasion -- e.g., Toby ordering everyone he's talking to to be quiet while he thinks of the right word. These moments of eloquence failure are probably there to make the eloquence overload elsewhere easier to accept. However [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife savvy viewers]] can recognise the cadence of artfully constructed stumbles. [[note]]If you read the scripts, you'll realize Creator/AaronSorkin never gives actors extra words to trip over, so lines come to a screeching halt instead of a more realistic stutter or interruption by another character.[[/note]] Another bit of unusual realism in Sorkin's writing is having characters not hear each other the first time and ask "What?" so that a line has to be repeated. Other Sorkinese staples are characters interrupting each other and transferring one conversation or phrase among several characters throughout the course of an episode.\\
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Some justification lies in the training some career politicians and lawyers receive in oratory, though this is not as common as it was. Oratory is the art of the Spontaneous Eloquent Monologue [[note]]and prepared speech delivery[[/note]]. Toby actually describes several tools of rhetoric as he is using them as part of a monologue. However some of the ''contexts'' in which the characters come out with Spontaneous Eloquent Monologues can still strain credibility. At other times, even Toby's eloquence fails him. "You want to bring down the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?" This is the mash-up central to Sorkinese: one part Spontaneous Eloquent Monologue and one part "I have to see a guy about a thing."

* [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Repetition]]. Also, repetition.

* [[FrankMiller Repetition]].

* Averted in ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': Marshall claims it's really hard to come up with a good speech off the top of your head, so Ted starts giving him an example: he ends up stumbling over himself, correcting himself profusely and resorting to empty doublespeak.

* Franchise/MassEffect largely goes with this, but in the first game, at least, there are instances of mumbling and using filler, mostly during little lines - the ones that happen without the camera giving you a closeup of the characters' face. Generally the subtitles are grammatically correct, the actual line reads less so. Garrus stammers when saying he's never seen the Council in person before. Ian Newstead, fighting mind control, slurs and babbles and drops words as he chants "[[MadnessMantra My mind is my own]]." Liara gets flustered and incoherent.
** In VideoGame/MassEffect3, Garrus says of Tali, "Tali's a welcome face around here... or... no. Well. A... a welcome face... behind the helmet. I guess." By the end they [[http://youtu.be/C2o_XUEfGeo may hook up]], and if discovered they both babble and stutter and in general deliver far less coherent versions of the lines in the subtitles. It is {{Adorkable}}.
* Generally, everyone uses proper diction in VideoGame/HalfLife. The G-Man, however, is consistently stuttering, pausing, and taking in deep breaths. It actually helps make him appear as something trying to look human, [[UncannyValley and failing]].

* [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Jean-Luc Picard]]. It ain't called the PatrickStewartSpeech for nuthin'.

* Although he's been known to break out into speeches from time to time, in general the writing in the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series is made to seem as natural as possible, individual speech patterns, occasional repetition and lots of uses of "Erm's, um's and Er" pepper the characters dialogue. This becomes a minor plot point in [[HarryPotterandtheGobletofFire the fourth book]] when part of the sphinx's riddle involves "a sound often heard in the search for a hard to find word." Harry tries to think what this sound might be, using a lot of er's while doing so. Guess what the sound is?

This trope is an AcceptableBreakFromReality; Real dialogue can be unreadable. Journalists [[GenreSavvy know]] that an interview subject can be made to look stupid by simply repeating their speech, word-for-word[[hottip:*:A detailed exploration of this can be found [[http://mechanicalhamster.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/realism-is-fake/ here]]. We enjoy the fruits of scriptwriting and acting more when they are free to be polished. Part of the reason is to make speech come across [[RealityIsUnrealistic the way it is heard]] [[RuleOfPerception rather than the way it is]]; humans are well-adapted to interpret speech, and as a result what we experience is an interpretation of speech rather than a recording of it. Also falls under TheLawOfConservationOfDetail - because the time it takes for a character to correct themselves could be used for more dialogue.

It also contains purposeful aversions of Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic -- characters sometimes stop and start over, fail to find the right words, or fall back on generalities ("Don't be the guy who comes in here with half a thing!"). This is even lampshaded on occasion -- e.g., Toby ordering everyone he's talking to to be quiet while he thinks of the right word. These moments of eloquence failure are probably there to make the eloquence overload elsewhere easier to accept. However [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife savvy viewers]] can recognise the cadence of artfully constructed stumbles. [[hottip:*:If you read the scripts, you'll realize Creator/AaronSorkin never gives actors extra words to trip over, so lines come to a screeching halt instead of a more realistic stutter or interruption by another character.]] Another bit of unusual realism in Sorkin's writing is having characters not hear each other the first time and ask "What?" so that a line has to be repeated. Other Sorkinese staples are characters interrupting each other and transferring one conversation or phrase among several characters throughout the course of an episode.\\

Some justification lies in the training some career politicians and lawyers receive in oratory, though this is not as common as it was. Oratory is the art of the Spontaneous Eloquent Monologue [[hottip:*:and prepared speech delivery]]. Toby actually describes several tools of rhetoric as he is using them as part of a monologue. However some of the ''contexts'' in which the characters come out with Spontaneous Eloquent Monologues can still strain credibility. At other times, even Toby's eloquence fails him. "You want to bring down the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing?" This is the mash-up central to Sorkinese: one part Spontaneous Eloquent Monologue and one part "I have to see a guy about a thing."

* MarkTwain pioneered authentic regional and social dialects for all of his characters. However the spelt-out slave patois (for example Jim in ''Literature/AdventuresOfHuckleberryFinn'') is irritating to some readers. [[hottip:* :Also see Zora Neal Hurston's ''Literature/TheirEyesWereWatchingGod'']]

* ''TheBrothersKaramazov''. Dmitri can spout poetry and orate like the best of 'em when half-drunk, and seemingly ''only'' while half-drunk.

** However, the characters are absurdly witty despite their limited vocabularies, with rapid-fire quips and an encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture; only the socially awkward need ever resort to BuffySpeak. It's kind of like the Algonquian Round Table, only with mallrats and surfers.

-->"People always ask me if Christopher Walken is really like [[CloudCuckoolander that]] in real life...and the answer is YES!" --[[DwayneJohnson The Rock]] on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" promoting ''Film/TheRundown''.

* Although he's been known to break out into speeches from time to time, in general the writing in the ''HarryPotter'' series is made to seem as natural as possible, individual speech patterns, occasional repetition and lots of uses of "Erm's, um's and Er" pepper the characters dialogue. This becomes a minor plot point in [[HarryPotterandtheGobletofFire the fourth book]] when part of the sphinx's riddle involves "a sound often heard in the search for a hard to find word." Harry tries to think what this sound might be, using a lot of er's while doing so. Guess what the sound is?

* The ''VForVendetta'' graphic novel features very naturalistic dialogue, with occasional uh's and lots of pauses in the middle of sentences, especially that of Brian Etheridge. This contrasts V's eloquent, rhythmical, quotation-filled, literary prose.

*** That or he was doing his damnedest to give some dramatic flavor to lines that were, frankly, like chewing cardboard-flavored rice crackers.