Speaking Shakespeare

Shakespeare is a name that divides the nation - those who cringe or tremble at the mere memory of those painful English classes, and those who swoon and smile conjuring the images of words read and plays watched over and over. Those who don't 'understand' Shakespeare, and those who do.

My little Cousin Charlie - not even having reached his 2nd birthday yet - gave me a wonderful book for Christmas (though I have my suspicions mummy and daddy helped him out):

To Be Or Not To Be... and everything else you should know from Shakespeare

I knew that Shakespeare was responsible for manymany words we still use in the English language - a fact that a lot of people are unaware of - but I didn't realise quite how many. Ignoring the details, my book explains how there are some 2,000 words Shakespeare is the first recorded person to have used - which means he either invented them or popularized them - and about 800 of these words are still used in modern language!!

I thought I'd share a few with you

accommodation

accused (as noun: the accused)

addiction

alligator

to arouse

assassination

bandit

bedroom

belongings

birthplace

bloodstained

to cater

cold-blooded and cold-hearted

deafening

disgraceful

to dislocate (referring to anatomy)

to drug

to educate

to ensnare

eventful

eyeball

farmhouse

fashionable

gnarled

to gossip

hint

impartial

inaudible

laughable

leaky

mimic

mortifying

perplex

published

satisfying

schoolboy

silliness

uncomfortable

well behaved

widowed

As you can see, many of the words may have been original words that were merely altered slightly rather than invented from scratch, for example education existed, but Shakespeare invented its verb form, to educate; graceful existed, but Shakespeare changed 'not graceful' to disgraceful; and assassin as a noun existed, but Shakespeare invented the verb assassination.

So, whether you knew it or not, you can all speak Shakespeare ;-)