Complex Numbers

The Play's the Thing

I mean, aren't we always quoting Shakespeare?

21 Phrases You Use Without Realizing You're Quoting William Shakespeare  

William Shakespeare devised new words and countless plot tropes that still appear in everyday life.

And yet, when I devise a new word, people tell me I don't speak English good.

But an incredible number of lines from his plays have become so ingrained into modern vernacular that we no longer recognize them as lines from plays at all.

One wonders if he really did coin these phrases or adapted them from the vernacular. It's like... if someone's passing a meme around, and I put it in a book, and somehow the internet dies but the book survives, in five hundred years will they say I invented the phrase from the meme?

...probably not; they'll just assume I lifted it from somewhere. But for some reason Shakespeare gets the benefit of the doubt there.

I'm not going to quote all of them, just my thoughts on a few.

2. "GREEN-EYED MONSTER" // OTHELLO, ACT III, SCENE III

Before Shakespeare, the color green was most commonly associated with illness.

Coincidentally, just this evening, I was perusing the contents of my liquor cabinet and went, "Hm. I wonder what would happen if I mixed this absinthe with that Midori?" (Both are green, if you don't know.) And now at least I know what to call it when I concoct that unholy abomination, probably right after I publish this.

3. "PURE AS THE DRIVEN SNOW" // HAMLET, ACT III, SCENE I AND THE WINTER'S TALE, ACT IV, SCENE IV

For the record, this simile works best right after the snow falls, and not a few hours later when tires and footprints turn it into brown slush.

But then it's not "driven" snow, is it? IS IT? Before cars, "driving" meant driving a team of horses (or other animals like oxen or whatever), maybe in front of a carriage or plow. Driven snow is thus snow that has been driven on. At least that's the interpretation I use; I just assume "pure as the driven snow" is sarcasm, like "clear as mud" or "smooth as sandpaper." But then, I'm of the considered opinion that Romeo and Juliet is best viewed as satire.

7. "GOOD RIDDANCE" // TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, ACT II, SCENE I

Bye, Felicia.

13. "LOVE IS BLIND" // THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, ACT II, SCENE VI

Chaucer actually wrote the phrase ("For loue is blynd alday and may nat see") in The Merchant’s Tale in 1405, but it didn't become popular and wasn't seen in print again until Shakespeare wrote it down.

More likely, love is deaf. I mean, who hasn't fallen into a thirst trap and ended up missing red flags because they're just so damn hot? Too much looking, not enough listening.

Also, remember what I said about maybe Shakespeare didn't coin all of these? Well.

21. "THE GAME IS AFOOT" // HENRY V, ACT III, SCENE I

Nope! It wasn't Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who coined this phrase—Sherlock Holmes' most famous catchphrase comes from Henry V...

At some point, somewhere, I wrote "the foot is a game!" in a zombie story. Can't for the life of me find it now, or remember what it was about. It's not on WDC.

So anyway, short but interesting article for Shakespeare, idiom, and cliché fans.