What did shakespeare mean by dig-you-good den?

Answer 1

If you are asking this question you have been had. Many many people ask it which suggests it is a standard question in some commercial course on Shakespeare. The problem is that the person who is asking you this question knows nothing about Shakespeare, because Shakespeare never ever uses the phrase "dig you good den." (It's not a word at all)

Please feel free to add a comment or a message on my message board to tell me what schoolteacher or course this question came from.

Something similar is said by Costard in Love's Labour's Lost: "God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?", but Costard is an idiot and probably has it mixed up. Shakespeare also has a character say "Gi' you good den" but "Gi' " is obviously not "dig".

You must go to whoever is using this standard question while knowing even less about the subject than you do and ask them to point to the place in the text where Shakespeare uses this "word". If you have found this question in a standardized packaged English course you paid money for, you might consider that there are better and cheaper ways to educate yourself.

Answer 2

Shakespeare never used this word. It only appears on APEX tests, which are generally wrong. The expression "God give you good evening" did become abbreviated. "God give" generally became "God" or "Gi'" and "good evening" became "good even", "good den", "god den" or "godden"

But no "dig"

Answer 3

dig a den