Why do we study Shakespeare?
That’s a mouthful!
• According to a theory of sociologists who
study human nature, the number of words
spoken by the average man in a given day are
about 10,000.
• The average woman uses about 25,000 words
in a day.
NOW
• Currently there are
500,000 words
• 1,000,000 words total
(including scientific words)
WOW!
• An average adult with English
as a first language understands
between 50,000 and 250,000
words.
• Up to 400,000 if you have a large vocabulary
like Winston Churchill!
HOWEVER….
• Most people actually use
about 10% of the words they
understand.
• So a person who understands
50,000 words probably uses
about 5,000.
Then…
• Shakespeare used about 29,000 words in his
plays and sonnets, so we might estimate that
he had a vocabulary of 290,000 words.
• How many more words than us did he know?
What a difference!
• If we use 5,000 words and we
probably know 50,000, how many
did Shakespeare know?
• 290,000 – 50,000 = 240,000 more
words than a modern, average
speaking person!
No way!
• In fact, Shakespeare invented
about one-third of the words and
phrases he used in his plays.
Just so you know…
•
At that time, the average man had a
vocabulary of about 600 words.
• An educated man's vocabulary
included about 2,000 words.
• However, Shakespeare used some
29,000 words in his plays. How did
he do that?
• He simply made up many of the
words he used!
Anything goes!
•
In Shakespeare's day, English grammar,
spelling and pronunciation were less
standardized than they are now, and
his use of language helped shape
modern English
• u=v uu=w i/j=i
He just made that up!
• William Shakespeare who coined the phrases he contributed more phrases and sayings to
the English language than any other
individual, and most of them are still in daily
use.
• A few of these were 'popularized by' rather
than 'coined by' Shakespeare.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one…
• A countenance more in sorrow than in anger
A Daniel come to judgement
A dish fit for the gods
A fool's paradise
A foregone conclusion
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse
A ministering angel shall my sister be
A plague on both your houses
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
A sea change
A sorry sight
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio
All corners of the world
You’re singing my tune…
• All one to me
All that glitters is not gold / All that glisters is not gold
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players
All's well that ends well
An ill-favoured thing sir, but mine own
And shining morning face, creeping like a snail unwillingly to school
And thereby hangs a tale
As cold as any stone
As dead as a doornail
As good luck would have it
As merry as the day is long
As pure as the driven snow
At one fell swoop
I know that!
• Bag and baggage
Beast with two backs
Beware the ides of March
Brevity is the soul of wit
But, for my own part, it was Greek to me
Come the three corners of the world in arms
Come what come may
Comparisons are odorous
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war
Dash to pieces
Discretion is the better part of valour
Déjà vu… I’ve heard that before.
• Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn, and cauldron bubble
Eaten out of house and home
Et tu, Brute
Even at the turning of the tide
Exceedingly well read
Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog
Fair play
Fancy free
Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man
Fight fire with fire
For ever and a day
Frailty, thy name is woman
Foul play
You can say that again…
• Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears
Good men and true
Good riddance
Green eyed monster
Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings
He will give the Devil his due
Heart's content
High time
His beard was as white as snow
Hoist by your own petard
Hot-blooded
Household words
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless
child
Exactly what I was thinking!
• I bear a charmed life
I have not slept one wink
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips
I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
If music be the food of love, play on
In a pickle
In my mind's eye, Horatio
In stitches
In the twinkling of an eye
Is this a dagger which I see before me?
It beggar'd all description
It is meat and drink to me
Lay it on with a trowel
More to ponder…
• Lie low
Like the Dickens
Love is blind
Make your hair stand on end
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in
water
Milk of human kindness
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows
More fool you
More honoured in the breach than in the observance
Much Ado about Nothing
My salad days
Neither a borrower nor a lender be
And yet again…
• Night owl
No more cakes and ale?
Now is the winter of our discontent
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo
Off with his head
Oh, that way madness lies
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more
Out of the jaws of death
Pound of flesh
Primrose path
Rhyme nor reason
Salad days
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything
Send him packing
Set your teeth on edge
What do you think about that?
• Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Short shrift
Shuffle off this mortal coil
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
have greatness thrust upon 'em
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
Star crossed lovers
Stiffen the sinews
Stony hearted
Such stuff as dreams are made on
The course of true love never did run smooth
The crack of doom
Stop me if you’ve heard this one.
• The game is afoot
The game is up
The quality of mercy is not strained
The Queen's English
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on
There's method in my madness
Thereby hangs a tale
This is the short and the long of it
This is very midsummer madness
This precious stone set in the silver sea, this sceptered isle
Though this be madness, yet there is method in it
Thus far into the bowels of the land
I know that!
• To be or not to be, that is the question
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub
Too much of a good thing
Truth will out
Under the greenwood tree
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown
Up in arms
Vanish into thin air
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
We have seen better days
Wear your heart on your sleeve
Yep!
• What a piece of work is man
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet
When sorrows come, they come not single
spies, but in battalions
While you live, tell truth and shame the Devil!
Who wooed in haste, and means to wed at
leisure
Wild goose chase
Woe is me
"All the world's a stage,
and all the men and women merely
players:
they have their exits and their entrances;
and one man in his time plays many
parts..."
—As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, 139–42[25]
Globe Theater
Shakespeare….
"He was not of an age,
but for all time."
—Ben Jonson