Happy Talk Like Shakespeare Day! Celebrated on April 23rd each year, the date of Shakespeare’s death (and what some celebrate as his birthday as well). It’s a great time to have some fun with words and get your Elizabethan English on! Here are some ways to celebrate the Bard and language on Talk Like Shakespeare Day.
Use Elizabethan Terms of Endearment for Your Significant Other
- Lambkin – used lovingly to refer to a person who is exceptionally sweet, young, and innocent, this is the ultimate warm and fuzzy pet name. In Henry IV, Part 2, Pistol breaks the news of the king’s death with the following line: “Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king.”
- Chuck – meaning roughly “my love,” this nickname was applied to husbands, wives, children, and dear friends. It comes from the Middle English chuk, a word that resembles the sound of chicken clucking. In Love’s Labour Lost, Shakespeare writes: “Sweet chucks / beat not the bones of the buried.”
- Bawcock – Shakespeare was fond of this term, meaning “a fine fellow.” It comes to English directly from the French beau coc referring literally to “a handsome rooster.”
- Duck – in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare uses the term of endearment duck, meaning “dear” or “darling.”
- Ladybird – Romeo & Juliet contains the first recorded use of ladybird in English, when the nurse calls out to find Juliet: “What, lamb! What, ladybird… Where’s this girl?” The term of endearment refers to a close female friend or sweetheart. Within the next 100 years, ladybird took on the sense of “butterfly” and “ladybug,” the first of which is no longer in use, though the latter is still used today.
- Bully – in the mid-1500s, the term bully affectionately referred to a good friend, or a sweetheart or darling. It was not until the late 1600s that the term took on the negative sense that we know today.
- Mouse – between the 16th and 19th centuries, people sometimes used mouse as a term of endearment applied to women. A similar sense of mouse arose as American slang referring to a young woman in the early 1900s and is still used today.
You can find complete etymologies and examples in literature here.
Have Fun with Other Words
- Add -st to verbs, such as talk’st, do’st, laugh’st, etc.
- When stating your opinion, start with methinks, mayhaps, in sooth or wherefore.
- “Pray tell” may be one of my favorite sayings for today.
- Use “beseech” when asking kids to do their chores.
- When they don’t do them, declare, “Fie on them!”
- Say “aye” instead of “yes.”
You can find a full cheat sheet of fun tips for Talk Like Shakepeare Day from Nebraska Shakespeare here. The insults cheat sheet here is even better.
Learn What Your Shakespeare Slogan Is
There’s an online quiz for everything, and a quick, 6-question quiz from the Chicago Shakespeare Company is perfect for today because it tell you what your Shakespeare slogan is. Mine was “No more cakes and ale?” Those who know me know that this is pretty much spot on.
Write a Sonnet and Enter It in a Contest
A sonnet is a 14 line poem made up of three quatrains and one couplet as the closer. It uses a specific rhyme scheme. Shakespeare wrote a whopping 154 sonnets ,with Sonnet 18 probably being the most recognizable today with the opening line “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
You can get more info on the structure of sonnets and enter the Nebraska Shakespeare contest, which has divisions for middle schoolers, high schoolers and adults, here. The deadline is May 11, 2015, so you’ve got some time.
Watch Fun Videos
Some people have shared videos of how they have embraced Talk Like Shakespeare Day. Here’s one of many examples that you can find here:
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