We All Quote Shakespeare

This post on The Chronicles of Ridicule (ho ho, get the pun? I don’t think the author looks all that much like Diesel, if that’s what he’s suggesting, though he does have cool shades) illustrates how often we all quote Will in our daily lives.

http://chronicridicule.blogspot.com/2005/02/dude-youre-quoting-shakespeare.html

(I try to link to all blog posts that use “dude” in the title. That’s what kind of Shakespeare blog I’m running, here.)

Below are all the phrases Crash talks about in his post, each hyperlinked to the instance where they’re used in the plays.

• “It’s all Greek to me.”
• “She is more sinned against than sinning.”
• “I recall my salad days.”
• “He acted more in sorrow than in anger.”
• “His wish was father to that thought.” (from one of my favorite scenes!)
• “They vanished into thin air.” (two possible sources)
• “I won’t budge an inch.”
• “…green-eyed jealousy.” (two possible sources)
• “He plays fast and loose.”
• “She’s tongue-tied!” (a bunch of instances)
• “I am a tower of strength.”
• “I’ve been hoodwinked!”
• “We’re in a pickle.”
• “He angrily knit his brow.” (strange: all but one instance of this expression appear in Henry VI, the other in The Rape of Lucrece)
• “We make a virtue of necessity.” (and a variant here)
• “It was fair play.”
• “I didn’t sleep a wink.”
• “We stood on ceremony.” (what does this mean?)
• “I laughed myself into stitches.”
• “Make short shrift.” (what does this mean?)
• “I received cold comfort.”
• “That was too much of a good thing.”
• “I’ve seen better days.”
• “You’re living in a fool’s paradise.”
• “I hate being a foregone conclusion.”
• “…as good luck would have it.”
• “It’s high time that I read Antony and Cleopatra.”
• “These are the early days.”
• “Out, with bag and baggage!”
• “That’s the long and short of it.”
• “The truth will out.” (and a variant here)
• “You are my own flesh and blood.”
• “…until the crack of doom.”
• “I suspect foul play.”
• “…with neither rhyme nor reason.”
• “Give the devil his due.”
• “If the truth were known.”
• “Keep a good tongue in your head.”
• “Good riddance.”
• “She sent me packing.” (I use this one a lot)
• “He’s dead as a doornail.”
• “Your hat is an eyesore.”
• “I’m the laughing stock of the neighborhood.”
• “My boss is the devil incarnate.”
• “You stony-hearted villain!”
• “That child is rather bloody-minded.”
• “What a blinking idiot.”
• “What the dickens?!”
• And lastly: “But me no buts” …does not come from Shakespeare. It comes from Henry Fielding. This expression is just one of myriad things that get attributed to The Bard just because he’s so famous and thus naturally serves as a catch-all for everything of suspect or unclear origin.

Enjoy poking around that list! As a final note, let me just say that, like the 1,500 words Shakespeare supposedly invented, all of the phrases above probably can’t be credited to The Bard’s imagination. Even if he didn’t coin them, however, he may have been the first to write them down.