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0:00 Introduction 0:36 Old English 1:25 Norman conquest 3:23 Medieval to Renaissance 4:18 Shakespeare and company 5:08 Modern borrowings 5:48 Spelling 6:33 Grammar 7:03 Too much Latin? 7:40 Gifts of a dual heritage The Latin Roots of English | 10:29toldinstone | 583K subscribers | 28,937 views | June 6, 2025

In his new memoir, Sonny Boy, Al Pacino describes how Shakespeare was central to his early development as a young actor. “I would bellow out monologues as I rambled through the streets of Manhattan,” Pacino writes. “If the hour was late and you heard someone in your alleyway with a bombastic voice shouting iambic pentameter into the night, that was probably me, training myself on the famous Shakespeare soliloquies.”... Pacino “always felt at home on a stage,” and an early performance in a school play literally brought his divorced parents “back together again,” if only for a post-show ice cream....

In 1953, Solomon Pottesman held what appeared to be an ordinary, albeit very old, manuscript in his hands. As he carefully undid the wrappings on "Certaine sermons", which was published in 1637, two leaves of tattered parchment fell out.Pottesman, an eccentric and prolific book collector known in the trade as "Inky", immediately knew that something exciting was afoot. The yellowed pages were scribbled from edge to edge with florid, archaic handwriting – rows of book titles, with crossings out and lines drawn across whole sections, as though the writer were making an informal list. On closer inspection, that is exactly...

For people like me, the Australia I was born into, was a meritocracy where one wage could get a family a home. Times have changed. The forty hour week is gone for far too many people. But endeavour still inspires me. Youth brings me hope. As in my above poeticised image from a Maribyrnong Park Football Club match last Saturday. Today we need them to be lions. Reminds me of Shakespeare: “To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms...

William Shakespeare’s birthplace is being “decolonised” following concerns about the playwright being used to promote “white supremacy”. Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust owns buildings linked to the Bard in his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon. The trust also owns archival material including parish records of the playwright’s birth and baptism. It is now “decolonising” its vast collection to “create a more inclusive museum experience”.

William Shakespeare's birthplace will be de-colonised over fears that portraying his success as the 'greatest' playwright 'benefits the ideology of white European supremacy'. Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust owns buildings in the playwright's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. It wants to 'create a more inclusive museum experience' and announced it will move away from Western perspectives after concerns were raised that Shakespeare's ideas were used to advance 'white supremacy' ideas. The trust also said that some of its items could contain language or depictions that are racist, sexist, or homophobic. It comes amid an ongoing backlash against the writer. Some productions of his works...

A hidden face recently uncovered in a 1789 Joshua Reynolds painting proves the devil is in the details. In "The Death of Cardinal Beaufort," Reynolds included a demon-like face lurking behind the dying cardinal. But the controversial and chilling demon appeared to fade out of the painting over the years, as multiple conservationists worked on it. Now, the painting has been restored to include the original fiend...Reynolds created the painting for the Shakespeare Gallery in London's Pall Mall at the end of his career and the inclusion of the lurking figure over the deathbed was not well received, said John...

(I set the time index to skip RJ Talks pointless commentary; shows that most of what she said was her usual crap)WITNESS The Brutal ROASTING of CNN by Whitney Cummings! | 16:18RJ Talks | 401K subscribers | 188,129 views | January 1, 2025

The archway was uncovered during archaeological investigations and is believed to date back to the time when Shakespeare and his company performed there.A remarkable 600-year-old doorway, potentially leading to legendary English playwright William Shakespeare's dressing room, has been uncovered in the UK's oldest working theatre.The archway was discovered at St George's Guildhall in King's Lynn, Norfolk, during archaeological investigations sparked by curiosity about a "weird shape" in a wall.When two noticeboards were taken down, an 18th-century wall was exposed. As bricks from this wall were removed, an even older archway came into view...St George's Guildhall, which hosted its first recorded...

If all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players, where does that leave non-human figures, like artificial intelligence chatbots? As it turns out, A.I. can hold its own against humans—even the Bard himself—when it comes to writing poetry. A.I. chatbots can imitate famous poets like William Shakespeare well enough to fool many human readers, according to a new paper published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. In addition, many study participants actually preferred the chatbot’s poetry over the works of renowned writers. Researchers asked OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3.5 to generate poems in the style of well-known authors,...

A study by the University of Pittsburgh reveals that AI-generated poetry has been rated higher than poems written by humans. In the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon lies the burial site of William Shakespeare. And right now, you can bet the Bard is spinning in grave like a rotisserie chicken. Similarly, in Heptonstall graveyard, Sylvia Plath is most probably swivelling, repeating her line “If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed” from "The Bell Jar". What’s behind the unwarranted gyrating from the beyond? Well, a new study in the US has found that readers can’t tell the difference...

The myth of the secular Shakespeare continues to cast a long shadow over most people's perception of Shakespeare's plays. Until I inherited the Shakespeare course in my department halfway through my career, I assumed that despite certain Christian patterns and occasional biblical allusions in the tragedies, Shakespeare's plays were broadly humanistic in their intellectual allegiance. Nothing has been a bigger surprise in my scholarly career than my gradually coming to regard Shakespeare as a Christian writer. I make no claim to know Shakespeare's state of soul in life and death. Consequently, I need to ask my readers steadfastly to resist...

In a recent article, Michael Bresciani, editor and publisher of new.americanprophet.org wrote “Make America Holy Again, has never been a political slogan.” This one sentence resonated with this writer as few sentences ever have. In high school, the line from Wm.Shakespeare’s play Macbeth states, “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day ‘til the last syllable of recorded time,” and these words became stamped indelibly in my mind and remain so to this day more than six decades later. The absence of holiness as a common goal for Americans will likewise remain imprinted in...

There is a tide in the affairs of men, as Shakespeare said, and now, two weeks before election day, that tide has swung decisively toward Donald Trump. Forget the establishment polls. The betting sites show him leading by nearly thirty points. He’s ahead in every last battleground state, according to RCP. Embattled Democrat senatorial candidates, including Bob Casey, Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester, and Tammy Baldwin have abandoned Harris and allied themselves with Trump. Both the LA Times and WaPo have refused to endorse Harris. There are more registered GOP voters today than at any previous point in history. As for...

The Missing 13th Amendment "TITLES OF NOBILITY" AND "HONOR" (Cause for Loss of Citizenship) "Proof" Offered it was Ratified by a Sufficient Number of States Date 08/01/91 David Dodge, Researcher Alfred Adask, Editor In the winter of 1983, archival research expert David Dodge, and former Baltimore police investigator Tom Dunn, were searching for evidence of government corruption in public records stored in the Belfast Library on the coast of Maine. By chance, they discovered the library's oldest authentic copy of the Constitution of the United States (printed in 1825). Both men were stunned to see this document included a 13th...

Two faculty members condemned “white ownership” of Shakespeare and the state’s manipulation of black history during an “Appropriation Series” at Arizona State University last week. The scholars are pushing for changes in curriculum and leadership that reflect more “diverse” voices. During the panel, they spoke to eleven ASU students in the audience and other faculty members via Zoom. English Professor Ruben Espinosa argued that Shakespeare’s legacy has been manipulated for purposes of exclusion and viewed through a lens of “white superiority.” He said that for the Jan. 6 “insurrectionists” at the U.S. capitol, Shakespeare represents a symbol of “white exceptionalism”...

When a legend passes, one must take note, and take stock. Today, legendary actor Maggie Smith exited the stage at the age of 89, having delighted generations of audiences at both the cinema and the theatre. Her film and TV credits go back nearly 70 years, and Smith worked until her death:Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, paid tribute to their mother in a joint statement. "It is with great sadness we have to announce the death of Dame Maggie Smith. She passed away peacefully in hospital early this morning," they wrote."She was with friends and family at the...

LONDON — Maggie Smith, who won an Oscar for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey,” has died, her publicist said Friday. She was 89. She was frequently rated the preeminent British actress of a generation which included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench. “Jean Brodie” brought her the Academy Award for best actress and the British Academy (BAFTA) award as well in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for “California Suite” in 1978.

'Murder by Death' with Elsa Lanchester, Peter Sellers, David Niven & Maggie Smith Murder By Death was a spoof of "whodunnit" films, in which the world's most famous detectives were invited to a remote house for a weekend and a murder. This they had to solve in order to win a million dollars. The cast included Peter Sellers as Sydney Wang (aka Charlie Chan); James Coco as Milo Perrier (aka Hercule Poirot); David Niven and Maggie Smith as Nick and Nora Charleston (aka The Thin Man and his wife); Peter Falk doing a Humphrey Bogart impersonation as Sam Diamond (aka...

"Downton Abbey" is losing its Dowager Countess. Maggie Smith, who plays the sharp-tongued Violet on the beloved PBS drama, told the Times of London Sunday that the upcoming sixth season will be her last. Perhaps more alarming to fans, if that’s possible, was Smith’s broad hint that this could also be the finale for the show itself. "They say this is the last one, and I can't see how it could go on," Smith told the Times. “I mean, I certainly can't keep going ... To my knowledge, I must be 110 by now. We're into the late 1920s."