In prosody the Inversion of a foot is the reversal of the order of its elements. For example, in English Accentual-syllabic verse the most common inversion by far is the reversal of the first iamb in a line of verse, thus resulting in a trochee. Examples can be found in the first and second lines of Hamlet's soliloquy: 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' Here, that is emphasized rather than is, which would be a wrenched, or unnatural accent. The first syllable of Whether is also stressed, making it a trochaic beginning.
