Shakespeare in its original language

In this short documentary, linguist David Crystal and his son, actor Ben Crystal look at the differences between English pronunciation now and how it was spoken 400 years ago. They answer the most basic question you probably have right now — How do you know what it sounded like back then? — and they discuss the value of performing Shakespeare’s plays in the original accent…

To watch the documentary, click the above hyperlinked text.

Getting to the bottom of it

The plays of William Shakespeare provide a wealth of pithy sayings — many of which he likely popularized rather than produced himself, though we may still be grateful to him for sharing them. Unfortunately, sometimes the original sense is adulterated by careless usage, so that the eloquent force of the expression is weakened. Here are a dozen of Shakespeare’s phrases with comments about their original wording and meaning: (from Daily Writing Tips)

To "brush up your Shakespeare," click the above hyperlinked text.