Just some of the words and expressions we owe to Shakespeare

The other day, standing in the basement, I was leafing through one of the books we gave our children when they were still in elementary school. It happened to be a short illustrated biography of William Shakespeare. In a section at the back, I was astounded to learn how many of today's words and expressions were invented by the famous Elizabethan playwright, and how many are still in use today.

One expression that immediately jumped off the page is quite familiar to us and is applicable to the current global economic situation. That expression? "Sea change." We've heard it used in speeches and in the news to describe a profound transformation. The phrase is first spoken by Ariel in The Tempest:

"Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange."

Scholars believe about 1,700 words and expressions were invented by our friend, William. I find the list fascinating. Here's a sample:

addiction
amazement
assassination
watchdog
employer
manager
schoolboy
moonbeam
motionless
soft-hearted
flea-bitten
successful
every inch a king
too much of a good thing
bated breath
for goodness' sake
good riddance
to thine own self be true
in my mind's eye
in my heart of hearts
eaten me out of house and home
fair play
quarrelsome
zany
excitement
laughable

The list goes on and on.

Shakespeare also invented words to imitate the sounds of actions. And here are three examples that are in current use:

hush
tut,tut
puke

Almost four hundred years have passed since Shakespeare's death, and yet these phrases make him sound so modern! It must be one of the reasons behind his enduring appeal.

"Here we sit,
and let the sounds of music
creep in our ears."
(The Merchant of Venice, V. 1)

For more information about the words and expressions invented by the Bard, take a look at this page at "No Sweat Shakespeare."


Notes:
Original source of information for this post was William Shakespeare and the Globe, written and illustrated by Aliki Brandenberg, 1999, New York, Harper Collins and Scholastic Books.

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Why do we merely play with our tools?

An invitation to a social event crossed my desk today that shows a reproduction of Leonardo Da Vinci's famous sketch of Vitruvian Man from 1492.

I got to thinking about how technology and science are changing our lives, and how Leonardo himself innovated in art, science and mechanics. He used the technology available to him to advance our knowledge of the universe. He studied nature. He used his brushes to represent human experience on canvas. He used available tools to design and build machines that were years ahead of his time.

But what is technology without thought?

In today's world, it seems to me that we often play with new devices because we succumb to the allure of slick marketing campaigns. We buy gadgets and learn how to use them; and too often end up doing only that -- learning how they function. Then we repeat some those functions over and over again. Think, for example, how many of us use a computer only for e-mail; how many of us sit on the couch and use the remote control to surf aimlessly up and down the dial. We fill our time with media consumption that is based on access to it; not necessarily to accomplish something.

What a difference it makes when we apply technology to some higher purpose.

I read on the back of the card that Leonardo drew Vitruvian Man after reflecting on the observations of an ancient Roman architect, Vitruvious. It was Vitruvious who saw the human body as the model of perfection. It was he who observed that the human body, when seen with arms and legs extended, fits into both of the so-called "perfect geometric forms": the circle and the square. He used these ideas of human proportion to design buildings.

So Leonardo was simply using his talents to draw a visual representation of Vitruvious's earlier thought. The same can be said of another genius who lived after Leonardo, Shakespeare, who based so much of his celebrated work on earlier stories from classic Greek and Roman literature.

Real credit goes to our predecessors, on whose thoughts we build our world. The works that endure are those that relate to deep, shared aspects of the human experience.

Technology is always just a tool.