Shakespeare’s Influence On Language

 Shakespeare is one of the most famous
Englishmen because of his
development on early modern English
 His development on English was huge
because he was able to incorporate it
into everyone’s everyday normal speech
with a lot of phases and words
Shakespeare invented
 Grammar was changing because
inflectional endings had largely
disappeared.
 Modern English was becoming flexible and
that was the forerunner to the Renaissance
explosion which created the inventible
language.
 Shakespeare was a leader in this movement.
 Writers for years have been able to invent new uses for
words to fit their writings needs
 English was being set free for writers to take it where
they wanted
 Shakespeare took it to many places through his texts
showing the way to how we use it today
 For example Ceaser made the noun antic which is a
fool and then Shakespeare made it into a verb to make
a foul of
 Early Modern and strictly Modern
English are almost identical which
makes both easier to understand.
 Some differences are the use of “thees”
and “thous”.
 Shakespeare exploited (to his
advantage) the fact that the usage of
words was in transition
 “You” in Modern English is used in both singular and
plural and as a noun but in Old English it’s used as
differently
 In Old English you was around, but used as the object
of a sentence, but when you’re talking to or about
people you use thou for one person and ye for more
than one person
 By Early Modern English time ye and thou had become
out dated and virtually disappeared and you had
become the norm
 In Early Modern English you was now used
for singular and plural but had a role as an
alternative to thou and thee
 “You” was used by lower class to speak to or
address higher class
 Thou and thee were used by higher class to
speak to lower class and others such as
witches and when addressing God
 The following is a list of words that William Shakespeare invented:
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Accommodation
Amazement
Assasination
Bloody
Bump
Critic
Gloomy
Hurry
Impartial
Majestic
Obscene
Road
 The following is a list of phrases that William
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Shakespeare invented:
Catch a Cold
Heart of Gold
Hot-Blooded
Lackluster
Method to his madness.
Too much of a good thing.
Wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve.
 The following is a list of insults that William
Shakespeare invented:
 Thou art like a toad; ugly and venemous.
 A most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an
hourly promise breaker, the owner of no good quality.
 Thou art as loathsome as a toad.
 Thine face is not worth sunburning.
 Your brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after
voyage.

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