Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Thanks taking the lead and informing those who were not brought up with Shakespeare (William Shakespeare, England’s greatest writer) of one of the many bits and pieces of his enduring contributions to the English language and to human wisdom.
Having grown up and gone to school in England, the Shakespeare version was never referenced as the basis for the expression. The musical one was the standard.
Then again, here we have an American language based on other parameters that are accepted here but like having “fit” insead of the grammatically older and more correct “fitted” for the past participle, denotes variations that are USA only.
Or new schooling modes that vary from original concepts but defend tha changes with “languages are living things and change is to be acccepted”
Or the affectation of pronouncing “herb” as “erb” thus “herbal” as “erbal” and thus requiring your friend Herbert to become the Cockney “’Erbert”. Cockneys pretty much drop all their “h’s”.
Also in America pronouncing an “h” followd by an “u” as a “y” thus “yuman” for Human.
Reminds me of trying to interpret Afghan Dari Farsi. Although Persian Farsi is the official language taught in Afghan schools, Afghan Dari Farsi fluctuates almost by the individual’s home valley and can end up a mix of Farsi, Pashtun and Tajik variation used in a particular valley.
Less or totally uneducated women also use their local dialect/vocabulary only. On one ocasion I could understand and converse easily with a woman’s Dari speaking husband, who had gone to school but could not understand a word she was saying - in her version of Dari.
The Turd’s regime in Iran has banned foreign words so they have invented a new vocabulary for words like ‘computer” that are lingua franca worldwide. Or for “helicpter” (though pronounced with a Farsi accented stresses). Helicopters are now “spinning wings” in the new Mullah Farsi.
Meanwhile, though the Mullahs rely on Koranic Arabic and have coined and used Arabic words much of the population does not even understand, several universities, fed up with the Mullahs are resorting to replacing commonly used Arabic words(even before the revolution) with pure Persian Farsi from before the Islamic era in Iran.
Revered, ancient authors/poets like Ferdowsi and Saadi’s sagas made it a point to write without using a single Arabic word in reaction to the Islamic yoke they faced in their own days.