Monday, May 3, 2010

The Common Shakespeare

Shakespeare had an enormous working vocabulary; he used about 29,000 different words in his plays and poems. (By contrast, most people today have working vocabularies of only 9000 words.) Many people think of Shakespeare’s language as difficult to understand, but he invented many words and phrases we use nearly every day.
Below are some common phrases from Shakespearean plays. Choose one phrase, and explain what you think it means.

Apple of her eye
Eating me out of house and home
Good riddance
Green-eyed monster
All the world’s a stage
To thine own self be true
Tower of strength
Wear my heart on my sleeve


I picked the phrase “Good riddance”. I think it means the same as “I never want to see you again!”.

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