Posted on 04/23/2016 8:31:19 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
Exactly 400 years ago on this day, William Shakespeare passed this mortal coil. His effect on the English language was YUUUUUGE. Therefore I am asking for general observations on The Bard.
p.s. PLEASE DON'T post conspiracy theories about how the true author of the Shakespeare plays was really somebody else. That stuff is old AND annoying. It was SHAKESPEARE who wrote it.
Where I live:
"Eastern New England English encompasses the Boston accent, the Maine accent, and, according to some sources, the Rhode Island accent. Eastern New England English is famously non-rhotic, meaning it drops the r sound everywhere except before a vowel: thus, in words like car, card, fear, and chowder (About this sound listen). The phrase Park the car in Harvard Yard—dialectally transcribed [pʰäːk ðə ˈkʰäːɹ‿ɪn ˈhäːvəd ˈjäːd]—is commonly used as a shibboleth, or speech indicator, for the non-rhotic Eastern New England dialect, which contrasts with the generally rhotic dialects elsewhere in North America.[16] In all of Eastern New England, except Rhode Island, words like caught and cot are pronounced identically (both are often rounded, thus: About this sound [kʰɒːt]), because those two vowel sounds have fully merged.[17] A phenomenon called Canadian raising occurs throughout Eastern New England, causing writer to have a different stressed vowel sound than rider, and for the verb house to have a different vowel sound than the noun house. /aʊ/ and /uː/ have relatively back starting positions. The horse–hoarse merger is still present to some extent in some areas, and the Mary–marry–merry merger is largely not present."
Source: Wikipedia
I will never forget the family vacation we took up the coast when I was 15.
No one understood me.
I swear I’d stumbled into Golden Pond because the store owner was named “Narrrrr-mun!” and his Yankee wife kept imitating Hepburn, when calling to the back room, asking if they had any “fyil-um”.
I never did get more film for my camera so from MA to ME, I took no photos.
That tourist trap did, however, feature the finest collection of dried, reeking, mutilated Skates, posing as “Jenny Hanuvuhs” anywhere, I’d reckon.
:D
*for your possible amusement...it’s another weird episode of my so-called life.
:)
I’ve done the show myself. “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” is a show stealer.
CC
Some of our family have moved to Florida, Georgia and Texas many years ago. One of my sisters visited Florida when she was in her early 20s, and married a man from West Virginia who had relocated there. Their son married a girl from Arizona, and their daughters are married to or engaged to boys from Florida. Our attempts to communicate are sometimes endearingly humourous.
Ooooh. The irony ...!
:’)
The accents amuse me. The prospect of a Maryland hillbilly-ette conversing with some New England yankees.
I’m mostly accent deprived. Only trace of one is that I sometimes say “out” in a fashion that has people asking if I’m Canadian. It’s some Tidewater remnant I acquired in Virginia as a boy.
I love it. I also love quaint and regional colloquialisms. For example, in parts of Pennsylvania, before company comes, one might “redd up” the room.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Dutch_English
Comparing Shakespeare plays to the major prophets, “Hamlet” is Isaiah, because half our well-known phrases come from one or the other. “Henry V” is Jeremiah, with all the political intrigue and grand personalities. “The Tempest” is Ezekiel, with all the weirdness and confused spirituality.
He took the last train for the coast, the day The England died.
LOL.
This may explain the Amount of Piracy committed in the reign of Elisabeth.
I don’t think he’d like his legacy. He really made plays for the people, now his plays are for the erudite, and the level of worship lit departments give him is embracing.
On your point, the English language has changed a LOT since Shakespeare. How we talk bear no resemblance to him at all. But, because we’re all force fed his stuff in high school, it still rings familiar. If we read as much Chaucer in high school as we do Shakespeare it too would be completely intelligible.
On Hillary Clinton:
“And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.”
-Shakespeare, Richard III
The Bard will become irrelevant when his plays are banned/burned by the Muslims when they become dominant in England. Like so much of our heritage it will be lost when the inevitable demographics caused by low birth rates erase the native Englishman from Merry England.
One of my favorite Shakespeare quotes is from Macbeth Act V Scene 5:
MACBETH:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Excellent.
I did however quote from the modern text. I will put the matter right on this St. Georges Day also. Hamlet muses on the relics dug up by the churlish gravedigger- also a bit of a wit.
There's another, why may that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quillities, his cases, his tenures, his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel. And will not tell him about his action of battery?
Great to read Free Republic on this day of Shakespeare's birth.
Why is it that I can only spot errors AFTER I hit post?
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