Friday Ephemera
Subway scenes. || Putty want ball. || Adventures in Magnetism with Professor Julius Sumner Miller. (h/t, Elephants Gerald) || What if the Moon spiralled inwards towards the Earth? || He doesn’t respect you, alas. || Gusto detected. || Now wiggle yours. || Printed GIFs. || The thrill of teapot-making. || AI-generated 1970s sci-fi pulp covers. (h/t, Things) || The progressive retail experience, parts 414, 415, and 416. || “The universe will expand by 527,250 kilometres” in the blink of an eye. || Between bites and sips. || Beverage of note. || Cable guy. || The thrill of mental illness. || You shall not escape. || Headline of note. || I hadn’t considered this. || Old-school alternative. || And finally, a service is offered.
What people think of ‘archaic’ is Shakespeare using words like ‘thee’ and ‘thou
My father was a hard working blue collar man. My mother was always on a mission to make him more “refined.” She arranged with a co-worker at the college library for our two families to go to Stratford. Before the play, we met at a restaurant for a meal, wherein my mom’s friend’s husband (a white collar government bureaucrat) was working my father for a reaction and an opinion on Shakespeare. My father, always one to take the bait, said “I suppose it’s okay, but its always ‘forsooth this and forsooth that.'” This got a big laugh from everyone at the table
We headed to the Festival Theatre and took our seats for The Merchant of Venice. There were 8 of us and the play was very popular so we were spread out in the theatre. The lights came up, Antonio, Salarino and Solanio enter the stage and Antonio says, “In sooth. I know not why I am so sad.”
Well the 8 of us burst into laughter at once, loudly enough to be noticed by the actors. Because of the way we were seated, from their perspective it must have seemed like the whole audience was reacting inappropriately to this innocuous line.
Anytime the topic of Shakespeare comes up I think “forsooth” and I think of my father.
“I suppose it’s okay, but its always ‘forsooth this and forsooth that.’ “
Great story.
When I was a schoolkid, an English teacher explained that by saying that “sooth” meant “truth”, and thus “forsooth” meant “in truth” while “soothsayer” meant “sayer of truths”, and so on.
There’s an even deeper layer. The pronunciation of many English words has changed since the 16th century, and if you perform the plays using the original pronunciation it turns out that every single play is packed full of incredibly filthy puns (for instance, in Elizabethan English “hour” and “whore” sound very similar).
It’s a lot more than the pronouns. The Folger Library annotated editions should give many excellent examples of words that need explanation for modern readers.
The English is in basis the same – Shakespeare is classed as ‘Early Modern English’, technically. The structure is pretty well identical: SVO word order; same modal verbs, etc, etc. Some meanings have changed but that happens too in dialect English; people have the flexibility of mind to accommodate these changes without too much effort. The pronouns I mentioned are probably the biggest change, because when they went out of the language (or almost went out – they linger in a vestigial way) they took with them the remnants of a conjugation system that had been in our language since before Anglo-Saxon times.
But it’s stuff like changes in meaning, and one or two different pronouns that tend to intimidate audiences, just because they lack familiarity with it. (And if performances of Shakespeare disappear, they’ll lose any chance of becoming familiar with it – Catch 22. Hey, watcha gonna do…)
But it’s stuff like changes in meaning, and one or two different pronouns that tend to intimidate audiences
In my personal experience, there is much more confusion in reading the plays than in viewing performances, because body language, rhythm, and intonation give so many additional clues as to meaning.
there is much more confusion in reading the plays than in viewing performances
This. I’ve taken multiple people to Stratford who hated Shakespeare in high school and they enjoyed it immensely because they could actually understand the plays.
This. I’ve taken multiple people to Stratford who hated Shakespeare in high school and they enjoyed it immensely because they could actually understand the plays.
Tangentially related: Reading in order to pass tests is almost always far less enjoyable: I can recall re-reading books with great enjoyment which had been mostly a burden to read in college. (The problem was the constant “worry” that I absorb and remember every detail because it was impossible to know what questions might be on the tests.)
“I suppose it’s okay, but its always ‘forsooth this and forsooth that.’ “
Heh…somewhat similar story…when I went to freshman orientation for college with my parents, at some point the parents went one way and us students another and then gathered back at an auditorium where we were all “recruited” for the Frat/Sorority/Greek experience. They showed this film that they had made that was so bloody absurd and over-the-top presenting the idea that frats and such were the only social life in college that really mattered. Then they showed what your college life would be without the Greeks, overlaid with the song by Pink Floyd Hey, You. When the line “Hey you, out there on your own, sitting naked by the phone”… through the quiet drone of that song, from the back of the auditorium, I hear my mother’s distinct voice exclaiming, in bewilderment, “Sitting naked by the phone?!?!?” Fortunately she and Dad were way in the back and I was way up front. And nobody knew me there. Yet. Ah, good times. Good times.
Reading in order to pass tests is almost always far less enjoyable: I can recall re-reading books with great enjoyment which had been mostly a burden to read in college. (The problem was the constant “worry” that I absorb and remember every detail because it was impossible to know what questions might be on the tests.)
Ooh, this. Especially because I loathed the spin that the instructor/teacher would inevitably put on things that I would be responsible for repeating on the test. This used to happen in history class as well which is why I did so miserably on the tests yet my papers were all A’s/B’s. For the most part.
…it immensely because they could actually understand the plays.
And after you’ve been to a few plays you learn how to read them. It’s all very reinforcing.
I once had someone say to me, in all seriousness, Shakespeare’s okay, but he uses too many cliches. Snort.
Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland
No court order, no actual crime (except insufficient fealty to Trudeau) and no word on how long these will be “frozen” and if they will be returned to account holders.
Wondering if the Biden handlers are busy trying to figure out some way to repeat that here. Operation Choke Point 2.0.
I’ve read so many of the Shakespeares, occasionally using the footnotes for comprehension, that I find the stage versions sometimes confusing in comparison! Admittedly I am a strange fellow.
No court order, no actual crime
The Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have each filed suit against the government and asked for emergency hearings in Federal Court. I’m not sure anything will result from it but one can hope. Our judiciary consistently backs the government.
Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland
Totalitarianism runs in the family. Deputy PM Freeland’s grandfather was a Nazi collaborator. So she comes by it honestly.
Plus it’s tough to trust a woman who insists on wearing a size 4 when she’s clearly an 8 or a 10 here, here and here. There are many, many more. Meow!
Shakespeare’s okay, but he uses too many cliches. Snort.
“It’s just a bunch of quotes strung together.”