Look Smart Trivia: Shakespearean Words
5Shakespeare’s traditional reputation for flowery language tends to overpower the fact that he originated countless, varied English words that any well-read person uses all the time. Whether he coined these more homely and informal words or was just the first to write them down, his unrivaled influence on everyday English is unquestionable. I’ve used at least ten of them in this paragraph already. Anchovy! Make that eleven. Anyway, here are photo illustrations of five words Shakespeare is credibly credited with the earliest known instances of. List all five before anyone else does, and you’ll win today’s $5 Meh coupon. Insert signoff catchphrase here!
@xn42 ran some guesses up the flagpole yesterday, and we saluted in the form of a $5 Meh coupon for naming both parts of each of our Flag Mashups:
- India & Iran
- Guyana & East Timor
- Fiji & Slovakia
- Palau & St. Vincent and the Grenadines
- Trinidad and Tobago & Tanzania
- 10 comments, 25 replies
- Comment
/giphy “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”
/giphy Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
There are numerous words that fit some photos. This could get interesting.
@cinoclav especially number 4!
@Trillian I think I know them but I don’t want to post them since I’ve already won this week. But yeah, #4 is the one I have a question mark beside.
@cinoclav @Trillian I don’t know the answer to #4, but that guy’s mouth position is all wrong to really be playing that clarinet.
His fingering’s weird, too. I’m not sure he really knows what he’s doing.
@Limewater I agree with @curtw4 on it being ‘zany.’
Wild chance on #4
@curtw4 Pretty sure #5 is wrong.
@cinoclav @curtw4 i think #5 still fits
Attempted poach:
@lehigh
Posting in case it is madcap, not zany…
@lehigh More base covering but I think @jrwofuga has it:
And adding the zany variation because I’m tedious like Colin Robinson
And would anyone call Spike Jones “unmusical”?
@lehigh And that’s what I originally guessed to myself. I think you got it!
@jrwofuga Yep, there’s #5. Though I’d combine your #3 and @lehigh’s #3 for upstairs/downstairs.
@cinoclav @lehigh I just think it’s an image of upstairs because you don’t have a reference point of where the photo is taken. For example, if that staircase is 100 yards long, I wouldn’t say I was downstairs if i’m at the place the picture it taken. . . but I digress. . both probably fit. . . Time will tell! Or at least Toon will tell.
@jrwofuga @lehigh But what if you took that picture right after you came downstairs?
@cinoclav Then, I’d argue the picture shows the stairs going up. . so upstairs.
Total perspective though. We’re both right.
@jrwofuga Yup. That’s why I just went with listing both. Wouldn’t it be great if we were both totally wrong and it wasn’t either upstairs or downstairs?!
@cinoclav . . . I wouldn’t call it “great” exactly. . .
@cinoclav And Shakespeare gets credit for a lot of things, but I don’t think he can claim Upstairs, Downstairs.
Could #4 be stooge?
Wild guess.
/giphy stooges
@f00l https://www.litcharts.com/blog/shakespeare/words-shakespeare-invented/
@cinoclav
Much thx.
Am opposed to looking these things up (for my part anyway); on the grounds of extreme laziness.
@cinoclav @f00l Yep, stooge not in there. Not to mention, those aren’t the stooges in #4!
@cinoclav @lehigh
Apologies.
Scrolled by image #4 too quickly, barely glanced, thought I caught a glimpse of some “three stooges hair”
My bad.
/image “three stooges hair”
@cinoclav @f00l That litcharts page is great, thanks!
Thanks to @cinoclav for the ‘cheat’ link I’d like to propose my alternatives:
1 - tranquil
2 - ill-tempered
3 - unaccommadated
4 - madcap
5 - useful
I don’t think anybody is wrong here (except for @fool, bless her heart
) I see several possibilities for #4, including silliness, laughable, and, ahem, fashionable. And I would argue for #5 that a ramp is an accommodation to a wheelchair user. Though I do have to wonder what people called upstairs and downstairs before Shakespeare coined the terms?
In any event, this was a fun exercise - I learned a lot of new words - though it will be a challenge to inject nook-shotten into my everyday lingo. I do, however, look ever so forward to being a slugabed tomorrow morning.
@Trillian I tend to associate ‘accommodation’ much more with a place than an act. I can see how it might be thought of that way but in this case I’d place my chips on ‘accessible.’
@cinoclav @Trillian “Accommodation” is the umbrella term for things that make facilities accessible under the ADA, which is why I chose it.
Okay, I’ll give it a shot.
I didn’t see the list before guessing!
Spike Jones! I love Spike Jones!