known by people of all nations and all languages .
Just like the thousands of catchphrases , sayings and bon mots that most of us use in our daily lives , usually unwittingly . These words have become a commonplace of everyday speech today . So , if an argument you ’ ve got into is all Greek to me , and you refuse to budge an inch because the other side is playing fast and loose with the facts , you ’ re quoting Shakespeare .
And if you ’ ve ever felt tongue-tied or hoodwinked and not slept a wink worrying about your lost purse which seems to have vanished into thin air , you ’ re quoting Shakespeare .
Or if you suspect foul play and believe it ’ s high time these people stopped living in a fool ’ s paradise , and that if the truth were known they ’ ve become a laughing stock , you ’ re calling on the Bard ’ s verbal dexterity to convince them the truth will out .
What the Dickens ! you might exclaim , but you ’ d be a blinking idiot to attribute your expletive outburst to Charlie of Great Expectations fame .
You have to give the devil his due , it ’ s the Bard again , no less , and you ’ d be the devil incarnate to dance attendance on the wrong author without rhyme or reason .
So , it ’ s a foregone conclusion I would have given my English teacher short shrift as he murdered Macbeth and set my teeth on edge as he emasculated Juliet ’ s paramour , leaving her with cold comfort . But , of course , we pupils are forever tongue-tied and our schoolmaster is such a tower of strength .
To this day , it saddens me that so many dismiss Shakespeare in their adult life
Shakespeare in Ten Acts the British Library ’ s anniversary exhibition runs until 6th September . It features a pivotal array of early editions , manuscripts , costumes , props , photographs and playbills . For full details go to bl . uk / events
To be or not to be , that is the question
because the way the Bard was taught at school made us kids long for the bell at the end of class . But now the game ’ s afoot and the truth will out .
There is much more to Shakespeare than his badly-taught plays and sonnets , that are not the be-all and end-all . Like the personal details about a man of flesh blood that our bloody-minded teachers neglected to tell us .
So , here , at one fell swoop , are seven fascinating facts about William Shakespeare that could have made a virtue of necessity if our schoolmasters had had the wit and flashes of merriment that were won ’ t to set the table on a ’ roar . 1 . Shakespeare is credited with introducing around 3,000 words into the English Language . The evidence of his literary canon speaks for itself : Shakespeare clearly loved words . His own vocabulary is estimated to have ranged from 17,000 words to more than 29,000 . That ’ s double the number used by the average academic . Not bad for someone who was working with a language that was in a state of flux . The seminal King James Bible , considered the first transformative literary work in modern English wasn ’ t published until 1611 – and used only about 10,000 words .
Existentialism unchained ... in Hamlet
2 . Shakespeare started out in somewhat inauspicious circumstances . He arrived in London around 1691 , as an “ raggle-taggle ” jobbing actor with uncertain prospects . He was mocked for having no Oxbridge pedigree , just another hick up from the sticks out to chance his arm in Boom City . Contemporary playwright and university wit Richard Greene dubbed him “ an upstart crow ”. What ’ s more he ’ d left his wife Anne Hathaway back in Stratford-upon-Avon three months pregnant . He was 18 and she 26 when they wed at a time when it was unusual for a man to marry an older woman .
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