# Things we say today and owe to Shakespeare **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 24, 2011, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406 "2011-09-24T00:48:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/1 "2011-09-24T00:48:15Z")
This is a few days old but I did a search and didn’t see it posted anywhere. I was aware of a lot (most) of these phrases but not all of them. The uh, disadvantages of an engineering education. 😃 Anyway, very cool… > [@](#): > > A 20-year-old girl named Becky from London [posted a picture of one of the pages](http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqx1trc0dV1qbvyrlo1_500.jpg) of her Moleskine notebook on Tumblr. It has, as they say, gone viral and less than a week later is making waves across the Internet. > > It’s a simple thing: Becky wrote down, the “things we say today which we owe to Shakespeare.” It’s phrases like “send him packing,” “makes your hair stand on end,” and “lie low.” > > [http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/09/15/140520535/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare](http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/09/15/140520535/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/2 "2011-09-24T02:22:35Z")
I’m fond of citing “son and heir of a mongrel bitch” from _King Lear_. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/3 "2011-09-24T02:31:06Z")
> [@Sam\_A.Robrin](#): > > I’m fond of citing “son and heir of a mongrel bitch” from _King Lear_. I need to memorize that in its entirety… KENT: A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver’d, action-taking knave; a whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; a one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition. broken meats = left-overs worsted-stocking = inferior [because worsted (wool) stockings were inferior to silk ones] action-taking = litigous, running to the law instead of using manly self-defence glass-gazing = given to gazing into mirrors superserviceable = officious, a ‘little hitler’ finical = nit-picking bawd = whore master the composition of = the result of combining pandar = pimp thy addition = your personal description ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/4 "2011-09-24T13:11:28Z")
Hell of a passage, isn’t it? (I don’t know for a fact whether we get “son of a bitch” from WS, but it wouldn’t surprise me.) And incidentally, you’re hardly alone–look what this guy has done with a degree in Astrophysics: [http://shakespearebyanothername.com/](http://shakespearebyanothername.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/5 "2011-09-24T13:14:29Z")
Hell of a passage, isn’t it? (I don’t know for a fact whether we get “son of a bitch” from WS, but it wouldn’t surprise me.) And incidentally, you’re hardly alone–look what this guy has done with a degree in Astrophysics: [http://shakespearebyanothername.com/](http://shakespearebyanothername.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/6 "2011-09-24T13:32:10Z")
“All’s well that ends well.” ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/7 "2011-09-24T14:37:10Z")
Wonder if “black-guarding” would be one? That’s a very real concept in my Scotch-Irish background, still used today. It basically means bad-mouthing your neighbor but goes a little deeper than that. Since a lot of our traditions were “brung over” lol I wouldn’t be surprised if it was coined by Shakespere. ---
**Author:** ![Hello\_Again](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/85e7bf/32.png) [@Hello\_Again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hello_Again)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/8 "2011-09-24T15:18:02Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > Wonder if “black-guarding” would be one? That’s a very real concept in my Scotch-Irish background, still used today. It basically means bad-mouthing your neighbor but goes a little deeper than that. Since a lot of our traditions were “brung over” lol I wouldn’t be surprised if it was coined by Shakespere. [Not Shakespeare](http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/blackguard/). I always thought the phrase “Make the beast with two backs” is one of the more hilarious descriptors for sex; I believe its from “Othello.” ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/9 "2011-09-24T15:43:28Z")
She missed “salad days” from Antony and Cleopatra and “it’s Greek to me” from Julius Caesar. Also some sayings from Polonius, particularly “to thine own self be true” and “neither a borrower, nor a lender be”. “Gild the lily” is a corruption of a Shakespeare line. ---
**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:** [September 24, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/10 "2011-09-24T15:55:50Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > [Not Shakespeare](http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/blackguard/). > > I always thought the phrase “Make the beast with two backs” is one of the more hilarious descriptors for sex; I believe its from “Othello.” A close runner-up is “Groping for trouts in a peculiar river,” from _Measure for Measure_. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/11 "2011-09-24T15:56:21Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > [Not Shakespeare](http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/blackguard/). > > I always thought the phrase “Make the beast with two backs” is one of the more hilarious descriptors for sex; I believe its from “Othello.” Wow, interesting. Thanks for the link. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/12 "2011-09-24T16:17:05Z")
> [@Hello\_Again](#): > > [Not Shakespeare](http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/blackguard/). > > I always thought the phrase “Make the beast with two backs” is one of the more hilarious descriptors for sex; I believe its from “Othello.” My senior high school English teacher actually told us that the reason this refers to sex is this: A “beast with two backs” is clearly a 2-humped camel So clearly “making a beast with two backs” refers to “humping”. I guess he wanted to take our minds away from the obvious mental image. Or maybe he didn’t like the missionary position. Roddy ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/13 "2011-09-24T16:27:30Z")
These kinds of “words and phrases we owe to Shakespeare” are a fairly common meme, but is it really that Shakespeare coined them, or rather that his work features their earliest written occurrence? Especially for raunchier expressions, it may be that they were in common spoken usage before Shakespeare, but he was the first to dare write them into a play. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/14 "2011-09-24T16:57:10Z")
I remember my English teacher in high school had a poster with all of his sayings. It started with, “If you’ve ever said ‘I bite my thumb at you’ you’re quoting Shakespeare.” ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/15 "2011-09-24T17:07:39Z")
From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remember’d; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers… - Henry V ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/16 "2011-09-24T17:21:05Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > These kinds of “words and phrases we owe to Shakespeare” are a fairly common meme, but is it really that Shakespeare coined them, or rather that his work features their earliest written occurrence? Especially for raunchier expressions, it may be that they were in common spoken usage before Shakespeare, but he was the first to dare write them into a play. A fair observation, but how do we know? For example, I refuse to believe that he coined [eyeball](http://www.cracked.com/article_15859_10-words-phrases-you-wont-believe-shakespeare-invented.html). Since ‘ball’ traces back to the 12th century, I find it hard to believe Shakes coins eyeball four centuries later. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/17 "2011-09-24T18:01:51Z")
Did Shakespeare invent this phrase? I’ve always wondered. Child Rowland to the dark tower came, His word was still 'Fie, foh, and fum I smell the blood of a British man. King Lear, Act 3, scene 4 ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/18 "2011-09-24T18:05:41Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > These kinds of “words and phrases we owe to Shakespeare” are a fairly common meme, but is it really that Shakespeare coined them, or rather that his work features their earliest written occurrence? Especially for raunchier expressions, it may be that they were in common spoken usage before Shakespeare, but he was the first to dare write them into a play. Yup. I dislike some of those ‘if you’re saying these words you’re quoting Shakespeare…’ posters because some of them are such ordinary words; no other writer since has coined a word as common as eyeball, and they were doing exactly the same job as Shakespeare. And it’s an eye, which is in the shape of a ball; it doesn’t take Shakespeare to see that. In context it’s as certain as can be that ‘to be or not be’ was a Shakespeare original. but even phrases like ‘sweets for the sweet’ may have been common axioms. Still, part of the reason we know some of those words and phrases is because Shakespeare used them in his plays, which were really popular, popular enough to get saved in a written form and then revived repeatedly, so Shakespeare does deserve some of the credit. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2011, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/19 "2011-09-24T18:09:45Z")
> [@furryman](#): > > Did Shakespeare invent this phrase? I’ve always wondered. > > Child Rowland to the dark tower came, > His word was still 'Fie, foh, and fum > I smell the blood of a British man. > King Lear, Act 3, scene 4 That’s not in the verse form Shakespeare usually used - it’s in an old English verse form: iambic tetrameter for the fee, fie, fo um, I smell the blood of an Englishman [I’ve seen it as English, not British, but it scans the same]), and it also has all the traits of someone quoting something else. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2011, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406/20 "2011-09-25T02:26:54Z")
> [@RandMcnally](#): > > I remember my English teacher in high school had a poster with all of his sayings. It started with, “If you’ve ever said ‘I bite my thumb at you’ you’re quoting Shakespeare.” Here’s a poster like that, but the one you mentioned isn’t on it. [Shakespeare's Globe Theatre Gift Shop](http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/shop/product/quoting-shakespeare-poster/87?session_id=1316834300dbae529a51b374d581b93c8ce7ff861e) Click on “Zoom” for a more legible image. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-say-today-and-owe-to-shakespeare/597406.md?page=2)