# Any Shakespeare Scholars? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 30, 2010, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-scholars/551973 "2010-08-30T05:36:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RhapsodyInBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RhapsodyInBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RhapsodyInBlue)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-scholars/551973/1 "2010-08-30T05:36:54Z")
**"Hear the meaning within the word."** This quote is widely attributed to William Shakespeare on the internet. I can’t prove he _didn’t_ write it, but I can’t track down any play, poem, or other correspondence with that sentence. Pray gentles, canst thou tell me from whence cometh the line? ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-scholars/551973/2 "2010-08-30T06:16:01Z")
I wouldn’t claim to be a Shakespeare scholar, but I don’t believe that it’s by Shakespeare. I couldn’t find it in a concordance his words, and it doesn’t sound late 16th or early 17th century English to me. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-scholars/551973/3 "2010-08-30T15:16:47Z")
I concur. Wherever it’s from, it’s not Shakespeare, although it seems to have been attributed to him as far back as 2001, if Google cache can be trusted. ---
**Author:** ![RhapsodyInBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RhapsodyInBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RhapsodyInBlue)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-scholars/551973/4 "2010-08-30T21:08:25Z")
Thank you. I just started noticing it. I’m fairly certain it didn’t originate with WS or any of his contemporaries. The way these things self-perpetuate on the internet, I suppose that in ten years there will be an exponential increase in the number of hits attributing it to Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-scholars/551973/5 "2010-08-30T22:12:46Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > I wouldn’t claim to be a Shakespeare scholar, but I don’t believe that it’s by Shakespeare. I couldn’t find it in a concordance his words, and it doesn’t sound late 16th or early 17th century English to me. Agreed; it could be paraphrased, I guess, but at that time ‘hear’ was more often used with ‘thee’ or ‘ye.’ Also, I was once a Shakespeare scholar, writing a PhD thesis about the use of Shakespeare’s most famous lines in popular culture; I wouldn’t be able to place every line from every Shakespeare play, but I certainly would be able to place the famous ones and most of the aphorisms, and I can’t place this one. It’s a good line, though. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-scholars/551973/6 "2010-08-31T00:44:43Z")
I couldn’t find it in my edition of _Bartlett’s_, which has page upon page of Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-scholars/551973/7 "2010-08-31T05:08:42Z")
It sounds good, but there’s an online Shakespeare concordance and neither “hear the meaning” nor “within the word” show up as individual phrases or together in the canon. “Hear the meaning within the word” would also be sloppier meter than he usually has, unless it was prose – there’s two soft syllables next to each other since “meaning within” would be MEANing withIN and mostly he doesn’t do that if he can help it. It happens sometimes, but that might be another reason it sounds subtly wrong. Oh, and whenever you need one (and I do all the time) there is a nice automated Shakespeare concordance here: [Concordance of Shakespeare's complete worksConcordance of Shakespeare's complete worksConcordance of Shakespeare's complete worksConcordance of Shakespeare's complete works :|: Open Source Shakespeare                ](http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/concordance/) It’s one of those things you knew someone would put online somewhere, you just never knew it happened already. 😛 Open Source Shakespeare is, for me, indispensable. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-scholars/551973/8 "2010-08-31T17:18:35Z")
[This site gives a longer version](http://rosywhispers.150m.com/whispers.htm): “Hear the meaning within the word, Never lose a chance of saying a kind word you can, if you think you can.” [[Warning: don’t open unless you like pink.]] This is definitely not Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote plenty of prose, usually in dialogue between characters of lower social status or clowns, but he didn’t write for Hallmark. The first thing we do, let’s kill all the glurgers. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-scholars/551973/9 "2010-08-31T17:27:05Z")
I’m pretty sure it’s the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-scholars/551973/10 "2010-08-31T17:33:19Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > “Hear the meaning within the word, Never lose a chance of saying a kind word you can, if you think you can.” I wasn’t going to say before getting the longer version of the “quote”, but that’s definitely not 16/17th century English. I can’t give you a lock-solid reason as to why, but I’ve read enough of it in fiction and non-fiction to know that Englishmen of that era simply didn’t write or talk that way. And, of course, the segment is grammatically a mess…“never lose a chance of saying a kind word you can”??? Eh? ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-scholars/551973/11 "2010-08-31T18:20:33Z")
“Never lose a chance of saying a kind word” is a quote from Thackeray’s _Vanity Fair_ – Chapter 19 to be precise. [QUOTE=William Makepeace Thackeray] The different conduct of these two people is pointed out respectfully to the attention of persons commencing the world. Praise everybody, I say to such: never be squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point-blank in a man’s face, and behind his back, when you know there is a reasonable chance of his hearing it again. Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in; so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-shakespeare-scholars/551973/12 "2010-08-31T23:45:56Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > [This site gives a longer version](http://rosywhispers.150m.com/whispers.htm): “Hear the meaning within the word, Never lose a chance of saying a kind word you can, if you think you can.” [[Warning: don’t open unless you like pink.]] This is definitely not Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote plenty of prose, usually in dialogue between characters of lower social status or clowns, but he didn’t write for Hallmark. > > The first thing we do, let’s kill all the glurgers. Well, to be fair, Shakespeare DID write glurge on occasion, it’s just that he put it all in the mouths of characters like Polonius 🙂 (Actually, I can usually tell which of my students were raised on _Chicken Soup for the Soul_: they’re the ones who think Polonius is amazingly smart and insightful and the whole tragedy would have been prevented if only the younger generation had listened to him!)