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NEVER use thou when addressing someone superior to yousuch as the Queen or a noble! In Elizabethan times, such a mistake might have cost you your head!! Thou was used only when talking to lovers, children, pets and inferiors. Otherwise you was the polite form
Thou is used instead of you as the subject in a sentence:
THOU ART A KNAVE! (You are no good, and I'm treating you as an inferior!)
Thee is used instead of you as the object in a sentence:
I SHALT GIVE IT TO THEE. (I shall give it to you.)
Thy is used instead of the word your: thy house, thy dog, thy book.
Thine is used instead of thy before words beginning with a vowel: thine apple. It is also the same as the word yours: You keep thine and I'll keep mine
Ye is sometimes used instead of saying you: Ye all shall come.
WORD ENDINGSSome people get the idea that if you put "th" at the end of every second word you will sound like Shakespeare. It is true that there are some special word endings, but you must be careful when to use them.
The Pronoun "thou" takes verb forms ending in -st or -t: Thou givest, thou art, thou hast, thou madest, thou shalt.
The word "hath" was the Middle English form of "has" but was still in use in Shakespeare's time. The endings -eth or -th were put on verbs in Middle English when we would put -s. Modern English speakers like Shakespeare and the rest of us would say "he sings" but Chaucer would say "he singeth". The sentence "He tells me, Gertrude that he hath found the head and source of all your son's distemper." illustrates Shakespeare's usage--he uses "hath" but also "tells" instead of "telleth"
CONTRACTIONSSome of our contractions that we use today are don't and won't and can't where we drop the "o" from the middle of "not"The Elizabethans had some different ones where they dropped the "i" from "it";
here are some of them:
'Tis- It is 'Twould- It would 'Twill- It will Is't- Is it
METHINKSPeople would also say methinks instead of I think:Methinks thou art a clamperton! Methinks I know the lad. Methinks Mistress Brown is a shrew!!
GREETINGSHere are some of the greetings the Elizabethans used matched with the sort of phrases we would use today:
Good Morrow, Mistress Patterson. Good morning, Mrs. Patterson.
God ye good den, Mistress Wolfe. Have a good day, Mrs. Wolfe.
How now, Wench? Hey girl! What's happening?
Out upon thee, sirrah! Get lost, Mister!
Fare ye well. Goodbye. Have a safe trip.
Save thee, Gentlewoman. God bless and keep you, miss.
Heigh ho! Come hither! Hey! Come over here!
INSULTSElizabethans LOVED to think up clever and terrible things to call each other. They thought it was a measure of a man's wit (brains, intelligence). The better a man was at name-calling, the wittier or smarter he must be. Here are some examples:
NOTICE HOW IMAGINATION AND IMAGES WERE THEIR AMMUNITION!
day brained (dumb) greasy tallow (slick)
dried cow's tongue (disgusting) knave (dishonest)
clamperton (dummy) rapscallion (rascal)
prattler (phony) shandy (empty - headed)
a pox on thee (I hope you get smallpox!) snudge (spoilsport, cheapskate)
abbey blubber: a fat lazy person, i.e. a typical monk to the anti - Catholic Elizabethan in Protestant
England.
runagate: a renegade (it's the same word, just spelled differently) who has been chased through city gates; or in other words, he's been "chased out of town."
changeling: the idea here is that the fairies would steal beautiful children and leave stupid, ugly ones in
their place. Therefore the fairies must have taken a beautiful child and left stupid, ugly
you in its place!
EXPRESSIONSToday we start many sentences with such terms and expressions as: well, golly, darn, my goodness, good night, gee whiz, shucks. These express our feelings about what we're about to say. Here are some of the expressions the Elizabethans used to start their sentences:
Prithee…….Please! I beg of you!
Beshrew me…. Darn it! Stupid me!!!
I' Faith…….I swear it on The Bible! Honest!
Alas…Oh no! Darn it! Shucks!
Fie on thee!….Shame on you! Darn you!
Mark thee this!…Look at that!
'Twould be folly!…. That's crazy!
Forsooth…..Really! Honestly!
Not a whit...Not at all.
By my troth…. I swear it!
Nay……no
Aye….yes
Anon….Later.
I marvel much!….What! I am surprised! Egads! No kidding!
By my fay!….By my faith! You've got to be kidding! No joke?
Hark on that!…..Listen! Can you believe it? Wow!
Wiki User
∙ 13y ago
Wiki User
∙ 13y agoShakespeare wrote and spoke in Modern English, in a dialect known as Early Modern English. Sometimes people mistakenly think that the peculiarities of the dialect or Shakespeare's writing style means he was talking a different language. He wasn't.
Wiki User
∙ 11y agoBy "talk in his plays" you mean, I suppose, what did he sound like when he was being an actor? Well, for a start, he was talking pretty loud, because there were no microphones or loudspeakers on the Elizabethan stage. An actor had to project his voice if he was going to be heard over the crowd. Secondly, scholars think (by examining rhymes in contemporary poetry etc.) that people in Shakespeare's day sounded like what we imagine pirates to sound like.
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Did Shakespeare really sound like that?
You mean, "Did Shakespeare talk in poetry all the time?" Of course not. Nobody does.
What important information about the political and social atmosphere does shakespeare provide us in the first scene?
Shakespeare wrote at least 38 first scenes. Which would you like to talk about?
What was the atmosphere like in the globe theatre in Shakespeare's time?
When you think about it, this question can't be answered. You can talk about what we know about the big public Elizabethan and Jacobean theatres like the Globe. You can go to Shakespeare's Globe in London or watch films made about such productions (like Shakespeare in Love or Olivier's Henry V) to try to capture that feeling. But like all questions along the line of "What was it like to be there?" the answer is "You had to be there and experience it for yourself."
Did Shakespeare like milk?
We have no idea what Shakespeare did or didn't like.
What is the word a' in shakespeare talk?
In Early Modern English as used by Shakespeare, 'a (the apostrophe precedes the letter) usually means "he", as in " 'A bears him like a portly gentleman" in Romeo and Juliet Act 1 scene v This means "He bears himself like a well-behaved gentleman."
Did Shakespeare really sound like that?
You mean, "Did Shakespeare talk in poetry all the time?" Of course not. Nobody does.
What important information about the political and social atmosphere does shakespeare provide us in the first scene?
Shakespeare wrote at least 38 first scenes. Which would you like to talk about?
What was the atmosphere like in the globe theatre in Shakespeare's time?
When you think about it, this question can't be answered. You can talk about what we know about the big public Elizabethan and Jacobean theatres like the Globe. You can go to Shakespeare's Globe in London or watch films made about such productions (like Shakespeare in Love or Olivier's Henry V) to try to capture that feeling. But like all questions along the line of "What was it like to be there?" the answer is "You had to be there and experience it for yourself."
Did Shakespeare like milk?
We have no idea what Shakespeare did or didn't like.
What is the word a' in shakespeare talk?
In Early Modern English as used by Shakespeare, 'a (the apostrophe precedes the letter) usually means "he", as in " 'A bears him like a portly gentleman" in Romeo and Juliet Act 1 scene v This means "He bears himself like a well-behaved gentleman."
Why do people say Leornado Da Vinci is gay?
Because he was gay. People don´t wnt to talk about it, but he was gay, like shakespeare and Michelangelo.
What was it like to watch shakespeare?
shakespeare was a person not a play
What sports did Shakespeare like to play?
The sport most alluded to in Shakespeare's work is bowls. Shakespeare was a bowler.
What country were Shakespeare's parents born in?
Like Shakespeare, they were born in England.
What was Shakespeare's childhood like?
It was hard for shakespeare the children had rubbish stuff to play with like (rings,cup and a ball)
What was Shakespeare's childhood like?
It was hard for Shakespeare the children had rubbish stuff to play with like (rings,cup and a ball)
Did Shakespeare like jam?
Everyone likes jam. Shakespeare probably did too.
