Words and Phrases Coined by Shakespeare
Words and Phrases Coined by Shakespeare NOTE: This list (including some of the errors I originally made) is found in several other places online. That's fine, but I've asked that folks who want this on their own sites mention that I am the original compiler. For many English-speakers, the following phrases are familiar enough to be considered common expressions, proverbs, and/or clichés. I compiled these from multiple sources online in 2003. How many of these are true coinages by "the Bard", and how many are simply the earliest written attestations of a word or words already in use, I can't tell you. A few words are first attested in Shakespeare and seem to have caused extra problems for the typesetters. The popular book Coined by Shakespeare acknowledges that it is presenting first attestations rather than certain inventions. Words like "anchovy", "bandit", and "zany" are just first attestations of loan-words. Right now I'm in the process of referencing these. scalpel_blade@yahoo.com
Shakespeare - Hamlet | LearnEnglish Teens | British Council
Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, has come back from university to find that his father, the old king, is dead. His mother has married his father’s brother, Claudius, who is now king of Denmark. Hamlet is shocked that his mother has married so soon after his father’s death, and angry that she has married Claudius. Soon, a ghost is seen walking on the castle walls. Hamlet can’t believe that his mother would marry the man who murdered her husband. A group of travelling actors arrives in town. Hamlet’s plan works. This of course means that Hamlet has killed the father of his girlfriend Ophelia. At the end of the play, all of the royal household of Denmark are dead.
Literacy for the Real World
Shakespeare's Globe
Globe Theatre Links | Home (picture credit: Utrecht University Library) The sketch at left is perhaps one of the most important in theatrical history. In 1596, a Dutch student by the name of Johannes de Witt attended a play in London at the Swan Theatre. While there, de Witt made a drawing of the theatre's interior. Shakespeare's company erected the storied Globe Theatre circa 1599 in London's Bankside district. The story of the original Globe's construction might be worthy of a Shakespearean play of its own. Unfortunately, their aristocratic neighbors complained to the Privy Council about the plans for Blackfriars. In late December of 1598, Allen left London for the countryside. The endeavor was not without controversy. In 1613, the original Globe Theatre burned to the ground when a cannon shot during a performance of Henry VIII ignited the thatched roof of the gallery. Globe Links Cambridge History of English and American Literature—William Shakespeare From the Bartleby.com website.
BBC Learning English - Course: shakespeare / Unit 1 / Session 23 / Activity 1
Language in Use
These pages are written by Duncan Grey. Materials or suggestions? Want something on English you can't find here? write to Duncan. Students wanting to acknowledge reference to this site should use Harvard notation as follows: GREY, D S., 2012. Extracts from this site have been used not only in classroom worldwide but also by English examination boards, ESL textbooks in Greece, Quebec and Nunavut, Canada. "I would just like to thank you for all your hard work on ‘putlearningfirst.com’. "We love your article. "I just love what you write. ... I think, in your website, I have just discovered a goldmine!
Romeo and Juliet Comic
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Shakespeare Lives
Coffee ad from the 1650s
This handbill -- which can be seen in the British Museum -- dates back to the 1650s, and was produced by the first coffee shop in London, in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill. It is a simple innocent thing, composed into a drink, by being dryed in an Oven, and ground to Powder, and boiled up with Spring water, and about half a pint of it to be drunk, fasting an hour before and not Eating an hour after, and to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured; the which will never fetch the skin off the mouth, or raise any Blisters, by reason of that Heat. The Turks drink at meals and other times, is usually Water, and their Dyet consists much of Fruit, the Crudities whereof are very much corrected by this Drink. The quality of this Drink is cold and Dry; and though it be a Dryer, yet it neither heats, nor inflames more than hot Posset. The Vertue of the COFFEE Drink.
