Party Party Bardy
“I sat in my bedroom in amazement today at the countless, premeditated and almost obscene advertising on my TV screen. It made me want to puke at the generous exposure given to critical investments that often dwindle away and make you feel gloomy, lonely and useless. Some of it was just zany and laughable! Even if you are in majestic accommodation you tend to be a critic when it comes to talking alligators! It’s a monumental, long and eventful road to travel!”
Sounds like gibberish, yeah? Well 500 years ago the above paragraph would have read:
“I sat in my in today at the and almost on my. It made me want to at the given to that often away and make you feel and. Some of it was just and. Even if you are in you tend to be a when it comes to talking! It’s a long and to travel!”
Now that just sounds like Yoda talking or something!
Basically I wanted to illustrate some of the “everyday words” that were introduced into the English language by the Bard himself, William Shakespeare. The words he invented in the opening paragraph are:
bedroom
amazement
countless
premeditated
obscene
advertising
generous
exposure
critical
investments
dwindle
gloomy
lonely
zany
laughable
majestic
accommodation
critic
alligator
monumental
eventful
road
Obviously “TV screen” wouldn’t be in the paragraph as it’s a relatively modern thing. Other words might also be excluded as I only concentrated on the Shakespeare-invented ones. I’ve just been thinking lately about all of the words he invented and so I wrote a few of them down and arranged them in a sample paragraph. Not rocket science, granted, but not bad for ten minutes work.
We’d talked about Shakespeare and his “zany” new words last night at Amy’s going away party – well, dinner party really. There were only a few of us there at Daniel’s place as the invites were extended at very late notice. Still we had a lot of fun. It got a little bit ugly later on when it was just Amy, Adrian and myself talking (Dan had “retired early” at about 2 am). Amy got a little upset and angry with me and Adrian acted as a go-between, which was good. Amy cheered up again and we continued talking until almost 4 am, then we left. Got back to my mum and dad’s just after 4 am and stayed there the night.
Got up WAAAAAYYY too early today so we’re going to have an early night tonight. Amy’s virtually done all of her packing anyway and we’re going to go back to mum and dad’s tomorrow morning, have a goodbye lunch with my family – Faye, Wayne, Mel, mum, dad, Amy and myself – and stay there the night (again). Tuesday morning Amy flies out of here and back to the U.S. I’ll be somewhat relieved, but very sad and upset by it at the same time. I know Amy will be upset as well.
Here’s to the future my friends….
So I guess my cool link-of-the-day is the Word Detective website, courtesy of Dan.
I did not know that Shakespeare invented so many words. Where did you take them from?
I find this very interesting and I am going to comment on it on my blog: I am refreshing my Latin at the moment, and just a dictionary of “New Latin”, composed with the help of people in the Vatican – there are quite a lot of new words (inscriptura electronica for email, e.g.) and I felt a bit uncomfortable at the “inventing” of words (although you need them to write modern Latin texts) – so it is fine to see that the Bard did it, as well.
I have several editions of Shakespeare here, but unfortunately I have read only a few of his plays – and watched even fewer (well, Hamlet, of course, several times, Othello – the film, Hamlet – the films :-), Midsummernight´s dream – I think that is all the plays I watched in the theatre or in a movie).
Hi Marchal. I went around to a couple of sites and compiled a list of words. There’s also a couple of books that are about the words that Shakespeare made up. Usually he’d get a couple of unrelated words and link them together with a hyphen, but I wanted to use the singular words that he invented in this particular demonstration.
I’ve not always liked Shakespeare. At first I found him pretty “heavy going” when you’re a kid in school having to read his plays. After a short time though I started to get into them and acquire a taste for it – though I haven’t read much of his stuff in a few years now I have to add.