3 Shakespeare’s language (or ‘It’s all Greek to me’)

William Shakespeare’s work plays an almost unparalleled role in English-language literary culture. Shakespeare was writing in what’s known today as Early Modern English. Despite some differences in syntax and in the meaning of various words, the language is mostly intelligible to modern English speakers – and certainly more so than either Middle English (the language as it existed from about 1150 to 1500) or Old English (the language as it existed from about 450 to 1150) are. Although the English Shakespeare spoke is over 400 years old, his influence on today’s language can still be seen, both in the popularity of direct quotes from his work, and in the prevalence of words and phrases he either coined or popularised.

The following two animations look at the mark Shakespeare has left on modern English, with a particular focus on words and idioms.

The first film gives a brief introduction to the scope of this influence, and some of the words and phrases that he bequeathed the language.

Activity 3

While watching the video consider whether you were aware that all of these words and phrases dated back to Shakespeare.

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Download this video clip.Video player: Video 3 A history of English: Shakespeare

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Transcript: Video 3 A history of English: Shakespeare

NARRATOR

The history of English in 10 minutes. Chapter 3: Shakespeare, or a plaque on both his houses. As the dictionary tells us, about 2,000 new words and phrases were invented by William Shakespeare. He gave us handy words like eyeball, puppy dog, and anchovy, and more show offy words like dauntless, besmirch, and lacklustre. He came up with the word alligator, soon after he ran out of things to rhyme with crocodile. And a nation of tea drinkers finally took him to their hearts when he invented the hobnob. Shakespeare knew the power of catchphrases as well as biscuits. Without him, we would never eat our flesh and blood out of house and home. We’d have to say good riddance to the green eyed monster, and breaking the ice will be as dead as a doornail.

If you tried to get your money’s worth, you’d be given a short shrift. And anyone who laid it on with a trowel could be placed with his own petard. Of course, it’s possible other people use these words first, but the dictionary writers like looking them up in Shakespeare because there was more cross-dressing and people poking each other’s eyes out. Shakespeare’s poetry showed the world that English was a rich, vibrant language with limitless expressive and emotional power, and he still had time to open all those tea rooms in Stratford.

End transcript: Video 3 A history of English: Shakespeare

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Video 3 A history of English: Shakespeare

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The next animation is a short, fictionalised dramatisation of an episode in Shakespeare’s life. Although it takes a few liberties with his biography, it shows the way that a phrase that’s still in use in modern English features in his work, it explains where the phrase originates from and the function it has in the narrative of one of his plays, and illustrates how it’s used in contemporary English conversation.

This is just one example of the many idioms that crop up in Shakespeare’s work. For a look at a range of other phrases, see the Shakespeare Speaks series [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] from the BBC in collaboration with the OU.

Activity 4

Watch the video and try to identify the most important points.

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Download this video clip.Video player: Video 4 Shakespeare speaks: Greek to me

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Transcript: Video 4 Shakespeare speaks: Greek to me

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR

It’s October 1599. Shakespeare has finished writing his history play, Julius Caesar, and is visiting a fair in his hometown of Stratford with his daughter. She has just had her fortune told.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Now, dear daughter, what did old Mother Howard say? What does the future hold for us, I wonder?

DAUGHTER

Oh, Father, Mother Howard talked a lot, but she had such a strange accent. I couldn’t understand a word she said.

[LAUGHTER]

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

You’re just like Casca in my play Julius Caesar.

DAUGHTER

Casca? He’s one of the men that kills Caesar, the Roman general. How can you say that, Father? I’m not a murderer.

[LAUGHTER]

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Dear daughter, Casca was in a group of people who were listening to the great Roman speaker Cicero. But Cicero was speaking Greek, so Casca couldn’t understand him.

DAUGHTER

Oh. Why was Cicero speaking Greek?

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

That’s what educated people spoke in Roman times. Casca says that some of the people listening to Cicero could actually understand him. Here are the lines.

‘Those that understood him smiled at one another.’

CASCA

Those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads. But for my own part, it was Greek to me.

DAUGHTER

So Casca had no idea what Cicero was talking about just like me and Mother Howard?

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR

We’ll leave them there for now. Fortune tellers were common in Shakespeare’s day, and they appear in many of his plays, including Macbeth, The Comedy of Errors, and Julius Caesar in which the fortune teller warns Caesar to ‘beware the Ides of March’, the day on which Caesar was eventually assassinated by his closest friends.

[SCREAMING]

The phrase, ‘It was Greek to me’ has become ‘It’s all Greek to me’ in modern English. And it’s used when something, not just a foreign language, is difficult to understand. For example, in a report about the 2015 Greek debt crisis, UK newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, carried the headline ‘It’s All Greek To Me: A Glossary of Eurozone Crisis Jargon’.

SPEAKER

I’ll never understand the rules of cricket. ‘Out for a duck’, ‘silly mid-off’, ‘googlies’? It’s all Greek to me.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Now, tell me, daughter, did you understand anything Old Mother Howard said?

DAUGHTER

Yes, she talked about you, Father. She said that you’re going to be the most famous Englishman of all time. But I think she was making it up.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Oh! No, no, no. I’m sure she’s absolutely right about that. She’s obviously a very gifted woman. What shall we look at now, daughter?

DAUGHTER

Can we go to the gold store, Father, please?

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I didn’t need a fortune teller to predict that. To gold or not to gold, that is the question.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]

End transcript: Video 4 Shakespeare speaks: Greek to me

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Video 4 Shakespeare speaks: Greek to me

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An important point with regards to Shakespeare’s influence on the English language is the relationship between culture and language. Many of the expressions we use in everyday conversation, as well as several individual words, take their meaning directly from specific cultural sources or historical events, and then have that meaning broadened into something more general. Take the name Romeo, for example. This can now be used to describe any young lover, but is dependent for this meaning on the archetype of the young lover in Shakespeare’s play. Similar examples from other writers include Scrooge and Pinocchio, or from history, Boycott and Quisling. In each of these cases, cultural artefacts or historical events provided the template for a general phenomenon, and the names of the original characters have entered English vocabulary as a way to refer to these phenomena.