Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Household Words

William Shakespeare
ED: How many times did you quote Shakespeare today?
Two, three, four?
My guess is...at least three times.

 READER: "Well, Ed, your time for the HOME has finally arrived. You've obviously forgotten that we're all plain old down home folks, like you, and have never gone around trying to impress anybody by quoting Shakespeare. We just speak in plain old common household words. Now, all of a sudden, you start talking nonsense....for no rhyme nor reason you claim we go around quoting Shakespeare?  What a sorry sight to observe the sea change in your mental processes. It's high time to get you some help!"

 ED: You have just quoted Shakespeare SIX TIMES.

READER:  OK, OK..... Something is rotten in the State of Denmark. The game is up.  What the Hell are you talking about?

 ED:  You just did it again. Twice.

  I came across a site on the Internet that listed all of the common sayings and cliches that we use in our every day conversations that originated (or were popularized by) with William Shakespeare. It's amazing.

 Take a look:

Shakespeare's phrases grouped by play:

A Midsummer Night's Dream
As You Like It
Hamlet
Macbeth

Full list of Shakesperian phrases:

A countenance more in sorrow than in anger
A Daniel come to judgement
A dish fit for the gods
A fool's paradise
A foregone conclusion
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse
A ministering angel shall my sister be
A plague on both your houses
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
A sea change
A sorry sight
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio
All corners of the world
All of a sudden
All one to me
All that glitters is not gold / All that glisters is not gold
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players
All's well that ends well
An ill-favoured thing sir, but mine own
And shining morning face, creeping like a snail unwillingly to school
And thereby hangs a tale
As cold as any stone
As dead as a doornail
As good luck would have it
As merry as the day is long
As pure as the driven snow
At one fell swoop
Bag and baggage
Be all and end all
Beast with two backs
Beware the ides of March
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks
Brevity is the soul of wit
But screw your courage to the sticking-place
But, for my own part, it was Greek to me
Come the three corners of the world in arms
Come what come may
Comparisons are odorous
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war
Dash to pieces
Discretion is the better part of valour
Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn, and cauldron bubble
Eaten out of house and home
Et tu, Brute
Even at the turning of the tide
Exceedingly well read
Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog
Fair play
Fancy free
Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man
Fight fire with fire
For ever and a day
Frailty, thy name is woman
Foul play
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears
Good men and true
Good riddance
Green eyed monster
Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings
He will give the Devil his due
Heart's content
High time
His beard was as white as snow
Hoist by your own petard
Hot-blooded
Household words
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child
I bear a charmed life
I have not slept one wink
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips
I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
If music be the food of love, play on
In a pickle
In my mind's eye, Horatio
In stitches
In the twinkling of an eye
Is this a dagger which I see before me?
It beggar'd all description
It is meat and drink to me
Lay it on with a trowel
Lie low
Like the Dickens
Lily-livered
Love is blind
Make your hair stand on end
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water
Milk of human kindness
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows
More fool you
More honoured in the breach than in the observance
Much Ado about Nothing
My salad days
Neither a borrower nor a lender be
Night owl
No more cakes and ale?
Now is the winter of our discontent
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo
Off with his head
Oh, that way madness lies
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more
Out of the jaws of death
Pound of flesh
Primrose path
Rhyme nor reason
Salad days
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything
Screw your courage to the sticking place
Sea change
Send him packing
Set your teeth on edge
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Short shrift
Shuffle off this mortal coil
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
Star crossed lovers
Stiffen the sinews
Stony hearted
Such stuff as dreams are made on
The be all and end all
The course of true love never did run smooth
The crack of doom
The Devil incarnate
The game is afoot
The game is up
The quality of mercy is not strained
The Queen's English
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on
There's method in my madness
Thereby hangs a tale
This is the short and the long of it
This is very midsummer madness
This precious stone set in the silver sea, this sceptered isle
Though this be madness, yet there is method in it
Thus far into the bowels of the land
To be or not to be, that is the question
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub
Too much of a good thing
Truth will out
Under the greenwood tree
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown
Up in arms
Vanish into thin air
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
We have seen better days
Wear your heart on your sleeve
What a piece of work is man
What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions
Where the bee sucks, there suck I
While you live, tell truth and shame the Devil!
Who wooed in haste, and means to wed at leisure
Wild goose chase
Woe is me



What a piece of work this man was!

 -Ed
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