The history of English in ten minutes. Chapter three, Shakespeare, or a plaque on both his houses.
十分鐘內(nèi)了解英國(guó)歷史。第三章,莎士比亞,或曰兩處住所的紀(jì)念碑。(注1)
As the dictionary tells us about 2,000 new words and phrases were invented by William Shakespeare.
就如字典告訴我們的,大約2000個(gè)新單詞和短語(yǔ)是莎士比亞造出來(lái)的。
He gave us handy words like eyeball, puppydog and anchovy and more show-offy words like dauntless, besmirch and lacklustre. He came up with the word alligator soon after he ran out of the things to rhyme with crocodile. And the nation of tea drinkers finally took into their hearts when he invented the hob-nob.
Shakespeare knew the power of catchphrases as well as biscuits. Without him, we would never eat our flesh and blood?out of house and home. We would have to say?good riddance to the green-eyed monster and breaking the ice would be as dead as a doornail.
If you tried to get your money's worth, you'd be given short shrift and anyone who laid it on with a trowel could be hoised with his own petard. Of course it's possible other people used these words first. But the dictionary writers like looking them up in Shakespeare because there was more cross dressing and people poking each other's eyes out.
Shakespeare's poetry showed the world that English was a rich vibrant language with limitless expressive and emotional power and he still had time to open all those tea rooms in Stratford.