William Shakespeare’s impact in your life is much bigger than just some required reading in your high school English class. It’s believed that almost 2,000 words appeared for the first time in his plays and poetry — including many that are regulars in our everyday modern vocabulary, such as “downstairs,” “eyeball,” and “bedroom.” He also built on existing language by changing words that were previously used as nouns into verbs, and by adding prefixes and suffixes to create new variations. As Shakespeare is widely considered the most influential English playwright, his enormous body of work continues to influence slang and everyday speech more than 400 years after the original pieces were published. Here’s a rundown of popular phrases that were borrowed from the Bard of Avon.
You may think you’re playing it cool, but this common piece of advice comes from Shakespeare himself. As Antonio in Much Ado About Nothing suggests, “If he could right himself with quarreling, some of us would lie low.”
This phrase, referring to jealousy, first appeared in Othello, where envy is the main characters’ undoing. As Othello’s frenemy Iago sagely warns: “Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.”
Before Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” there was Henry V, whose title character is described by supporting character Pistol as having “a heart of gold, a lad of life, an imp of fame, of parents good, of fist most valiant.” High praise, indeed.
All’s fair in love and kingdom negotiations, as Miranda in The Tempest notes, “Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle, and I would call it fair play.”
You can also blame Shakespeare for dreaded ice breaker games. In The Taming of the Shrew, Tranio (disguised as Lucentio) comments, “If it be so, sir, that you are the man must stead us all, and me amongst the rest, and if you break the ice and do this feat, achieve the elder, set the younger free for our access.” In other words, kudos to the protagonist Petruchio for breaking the ice to free up the maiden Bianca for other suitors.
A goose chase was a game inspired by the erratic flying patterns of the bird, in which riders trained their horses to conduct a series of difficult maneuvers, and then others had to copy. In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio cries, “Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done.” Knowing how things turn out for Mercutio and the young lovers, it makes sense that this phrase refers to a fruitless and complex (if not tragic) game of pursuit.
Not sure what’s going on? Neither was Roman Casca in Julius Caesar, when he said, “But those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me.”
This phrase is an emphatic declaration of how long Orlando would love Rosalind in As You Like It, although it was originally used in The Taming of the Shrew (published four years earlier) to bid Bianca an exceptionally long farewell.
We’ve since dropped the “good,” but this saying about a serendipitous event comes from The Merry Wives of Windsor, when Falstaff mentions meeting Mistress Page and gaining some useful information.
Chaucer coined it in 1405, but Shakespeare popularized this phrase when The Merchant of Venice premiered in 1605. Jessica wistfully explains, “But love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit.”
Shakespeare, not Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, originated Sherlock Holmes’ most famous catchphrase. It pops up in Henry V, spoken by Northumberland to Hotspur and Worcester: “Before the game is afoot thou still let’st slip.”
Congrats, Shakespeare! You are the father of the knock-knock joke. While used to cheesy effect today, this line, when uttered multiple times by the Porter in Macbeth, demonstrates a deft sense of cleverness.
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