Shakespeare\u2019s monologues have sparked the imagination of scholars, actors, and audiences alike. His characters bring audiences to the edges of their seats, make them weep and laugh, and even inspire them to fight for a nation they\u2019re not even part of (lookin\u2019 at you, Henry V<\/em>). But his characters and stories, monologues and dialogues, are not the biggest contribution Shakespeare made to the English people. No, the biggest contribution Shakespeare made to the English people was in the realm of language. This uneducated genius from the 16th<\/sup> century added more to the language single-handedly than anyone would have ever imagined. He enriched the language with over 2,000 words\u2014either that he invented, or that he heard in the language of the people and decided to use. Is it any surprise to anyone that in the massive influx of words Shakespeare brought to the English language, he brought a large number of very good insults? Shakespeare\u2019s inventiveness changed the English language in ways we cannot even begin to imagine\u2014the changes he made are so set in stone that it is hard to imagine a life without them. Such words as \u201cemulate,\u201d \u201cdemonstrate,\u201d \u201cdislocate,\u201d \u201chorrid,\u201d and \u201cvast\u201d were popularized or invented by William Shakespeare. Now, this man also invented the word \u201chonorificabilitudinatibus<\/a>,\u201d which supposedly means \u201cwith honor.\u201d Try pronouncing that word, I dare you. This same man who bravely introduced a collection of words also introduced a happy collection of phrases and insults, many of which are even used today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Shakespeare\u2019s addition to the language was, well, magnificent. He brought thousands of words into the language by his own invention. According to Melvyn Bragg, author of The Adventures of English<\/em>, \u201cOver four hundred years ago, Shakespeare had a vocabulary of at least twenty-one thousand different words: some have estimated that with the combination of words, this could have reached thirty thousand\u201d (135). His internal word-bank nearly doubled that of the average human today. He not only increased the vocabulary of the English-speaking people\u2019s by about 2,000, he also added a multitude of expressions and phrases that we still use today. BBC America<\/a> lists 45 phrases that Shakespeare coined in his immense collection of works, including \u201cas luck would have it,\u201d \u201cbreak the ice,\u201d \u201cDead as a doornail,\u201d or \u201cheart of gold.\u201d We\u2019ve all been subjected to the horrors of \u201cicebreakers\u201d (thanks, Shakespeare). I\u2019m sure you can name at least one person that you would describe as having \u201ca heart of gold.\u201d Even Dickens quoted Shakespeare readily! Charles Dickens begins his famous A Christmas Carol<\/a><\/em> by saying that Marley was \u201cas dead as a doornail,\u201d and then goes on to criticize the phrase, saying that <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMind! I don\u2019t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country\u2019s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n This is just one, rather humorous, example of the extent to which Shakespeare\u2019s additions to English have influenced the people today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you look at titles of books, movies, or any work of fiction, you are bound to see some reference to Shakespeare, even if the author does not quite know they are referencing the Great Bard. The title<\/a> of David Foster Wallace\u2019s massive monstrosity of a text, Infinite Jest, <\/em>(my own copy is a whopping 1,079 pages) references Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet. <\/em>Mumford and Sons album Sigh No More<\/em> is a reference to Much Ado About Nothing<\/em>. Look around you. You can probably find some other artists and authors who have directly referenced Shakespeare in their work. Just as there have been many film renditions of Shakespeare\u2019s plays, or even many imitations like The Lion King<\/em> or 10 Things I Hate About You<\/em>, there are also a large pool of books, movies, musicians, and artists who in one manner or another reference Shakespeare\u2019s magnificent works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Shakespeare didn\u2019t just introduce hordes of phrases and expressions to the language. He also introduced a large slew of insults. According to Melvyn Bragg, \u201cHis inventiveness was almost a disease. To take just one insult, \u2018knave,\u2019 Shakespeare produces fifty different instances of it in his plays\u201d (141). One example is \u201cThe lyingest knave in Christendom.\u201d Shakespeare\u2019s various uses of one insult alone is remarkable, and the variety he gives it with each descriptive word adds a flare of color and drama to such profanities. All you have to do is google \u201cShakespearean Insults\u201d and you will find entire pages dedicated to listing some of the most entertaining insults Shakespeare has offered our lovely language. Shakespeare\u2019s Henry IV Part<\/a><\/em> 1 <\/em>contains some rather entertaining strings of insults. Act 2 Scene IV, for example, has Prince Henry referring to Fallstaff as \u201cthis sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh,–\u201d essentially saying \u201cyou very fat man. Fallstaff\u2019s quick retort begins by calling him thin and lanky and quickly devolves into things I shall not define, saying, \u201cyou starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat\u2019s tongue, you bull\u2019s pizzle, you stock-fish! O for breath to utter what is like thee! You tailors-yard, you sheath, you bowcase; you vile standing-tuck.\u201d Readers and audiences almost can\u2019t help but laugh at the humorous exchange\u2014as is intended. Shakespeare\u2019s insults add humor and commonness to the sometimes royal tone of the plays\u2014especially when reading history plays such as Henry IV<\/em>. Other insults<\/a> include \u201cI am sick when I do look on thee,\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll beat thee, but I would infect my hands,\u201d and \u201cmore of your conversation would infect my brain.\u201d All one would have to do to find Shakespearean insults is search Google. There are even \u201cShakespearean Insult Generators,\u201d which enable people to create their own insults in the vein of Shakespeare. Shakespeare\u2019s insults are witty, cutting, and remarkably funny, albeit wildly inappropriate at times (I have avoided the most inappropriate ones here. Shakespeare\u2019s plays are not always \u2018SWU appropriate\u2019). Shakespeare had no fear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Shakespeare\u2019s wildly hilarious though sometimes inappropriate insults liven up his plays and entertained the masses, while the soliloquies and monologues appealed to the nobility and higher classes\u2014the educated folks. But no matter who they appealed to then, Shakespeare\u2019s phrases and insults have added much to the English language. His phrases flow into everyday speech\u2014so much that we have almost forgotten where they came from. The words he coined or helped to popularize now are so much a part of our language that we forget there was a time when they weren\u2019t here. Yet there was a time when we were strangely lacking such a vast array of words and phrases. And if ever the need arises and you should require an insult to throw in the general direction of some poor soul, I would suggest keeping with you and remembering some of Shakespeare\u2019s insults\u2014that way, not only can you insult someone, you can sound intelligent, while you\u2019re really just calling someone stupid.references:<\/p>\n\n\n\n References: Bragg, Melvyn. The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language<\/em>. Arcade Publishing, 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Amanda Platz Shakespeare\u2019s monologues have sparked the imagination of scholars, actors, and audiences alike. His characters bring audiences to the edges of their seats, make them weep and laugh, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":4328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[341],"tags":[97,138],"class_list":["post-4324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language-studies","tag-best-of-literary-analysis","tag-shakespeare","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4341,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4324\/revisions\/4341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}