hi this is Jill at engvid.com and today
we're going to be looking at the way
William Shakespeare the English
playwright and poet has influenced
everyday English today he wrote a lot of
plays and quite a lot of poems and some
of the lines from those poems and plays
have been used in the English language
because they were very influential so
and the way he said things was just very
good at expressing something it may have
been that people around him were saying
all these things and that it was just he
was the one to put them down in print
but looking back through all the old
books
Shakespeare was the first person to
mention all of these these are just a
few examples he was the first person to
put these actual phrases and words into
print so maybe he heard other people
saying them but he was the one who wrote
them down okay so let's have a look
through the list so oh and there are his
dates just to show you how long ago he
lived he was born in 1564 died in 1616
so a long long time ago so it's quite
amazing really but some of what he wrote
is actually used in the English language
today so let's have a look so first of
all a sorry sight okay so if you see
somebody walking along and they maybe
they've been caught in the rain or
something or they've fallen over into
the mud and they've got all their
clothes dirty they look terrible they
haven't eaten for two days and they look
absolutely awful you could say that poor
man
he is a sorry sight sorry
meaning sort of sad you feel sorry for
him looking at him he looks really
disheveled very dirty tired hungry a
sorry sight okay next one wearing your
heart on your sleeve okay now this is
your sleeve and here is your heart your
heart is inside here but if you wear
your heart on your sleeve this is a kind
of a metaphor or an idiom an expression
for showing how you're feeling not
hiding your feelings but making it clear
how you feel
so maybe if you've fallen in love with
somebody and instead of sort of keeping
it to yourself and keeping it a secret
you sort of make it quite obvious to
them probably in a very embarrassing way
but if you make it very obvious to them
that you that you love them you're
wearing your heart on on your sleeve
okay sometimes it works sometimes it
doesn't
so worth a try if you think so but it's
I don't know okay so that's what that
means right in a pickle if you're in a
pickle you're in trouble and pickle is a
kind of preservative in a jar so it's
like vinegar or something which
preserves food so vinegar sometime
you get little onions in vinegar and
they're called pickled onions okay you
can buy them in the supermarket so if
you're in if you personally are in a
pickle it means you're in a lot of
vinegar which isn't a very nice place to
be so that's real trouble you don't want
to be in a lot of vinegar so in a pickle
that's what that means so you have to
get out of it as quickly as possible so
it means in trouble okay next one
there's method in my madness and if
you've heard of Hamlet this comes from
that play Hamlet pretends to be mad he's
not really mad but he's pretending to be
mad for a certain reason which I won't
explain now it would take too long
you'll notice a lot of em's because
Shakespeare is very poetic and you get a
lot of sound patterns the same letter
repeated which makes it a stronger
phrase because of that there's method in
my madness means you may be behaving in
a very strange way but there's a good
reason for it
you have a method there is a reason for
behaving like that and which hopefully
it will all work out in the end but for
Hamlet it didn't really work out but
I'll leave you to find out about that if
you don't already know so he pretends to
be mad for his own reasons but he's not
really mad okay right so next one too
much of a good thing so you could say
you can have too much of a good thing
and I'm sort of thinking about chocolate
okay which I think about a lot um
chocolate to me is a good
thing but you can have too much of it
okay
and have a heart attack or something if
you eat too much so you can have too
much of a good thing so don't overdo it
everything in moderation okay just a
little bit of what you like a little bit
of chocolate or whatever it is you like
but not too much because you can have
too much of a good thing right next one
to break the ice this doesn't mean
literally if the pond has frozen over
there - ice on top you go and break it
break the ice to get through to the
water underneath this is a metaphor for
getting to know people if you go to a
meeting and there are people that you
haven't met before and you're all a bit
uncomfortable because you're not quite
sure what to say
if somebody then makes a joke and
everybody laughs and people start to
feel happier and more friendly and more
relaxed that's that joke has broken the
ice okay sometimes you might go to a
workshop or a seminar where people are
discussing things and often at the
beginning you have something called an
ice breaker right that's the same idea
the ice breaker for people to start to
feel comfortable with each other okay so
next one catch a cold now to catch a
cold is when you and your nose is
streaming and you've got a sore throat
and are a cold or the flu or something
so to catch a cold to me it sounds very
normal I mean you capture
all as well but to catch a cold maybe
before this was written down people said
to get a cold I don't know maybe even
the word cold wasn't used but
Shakespeare was the first person to
write it down okay next one full circle
if you come full circle maybe you're out
in the country somewhere going for a
walk and you get a bit lost but you keep
walking and you think you're going in a
straight line but what actually happens
is you've been going round in a circle
and when you get back to where you
started you say we've come full circle
okay next one a heart of gold if someone
has a heart of gold it means they're a
very kind person okay Gold being a
valuable metal the heart of gold means a
really good person okay if someone is
hot-blooded they can get angry very
quickly or they get into fights that
sort of thing their blood that is in
their veins and arteries is hot not look
well it is hot anyway but it's a hot
blooded it means they have a strong
temper they can get angry easily and get
into fights housekeeping again is the
Shakespeare was the first person
apparently to put this word in print and
it means as you probably know looking
after the house cleaning cooking keeping
things tidy dusting all the housekeeping
that needs to be done to keep the place
nice if you say it's Greek to me
it means you you don't understand
something if you're reading a book it
may not literally be in Greek but you
can say it's Greek to me meaning I don't
understand it because mo
people unless they are Greek or have
studied Greek will not understand Greek
okay seen better days if something has
seen better days like a chair if you
have a favorite chair that you sit in
but you've had it for maybe 20 years and
it's it's not new anymore it's some a
bit worn a bit maybe not very clean
looking you can say this chair has seen
better days okay and then finally you
may have heard this term star-crossed
lovers it comes from the play Romeo and
Romeo and Juliet which is one of the
most famous of Shakespeare's plays they
are star-crossed because they are very
unlucky very bad things happen to them
so they don't live to a very old age
because they have a bad bad fortune bad
luck so star-crossed lovers the stars up
there horoscopes
signs of the zodiac that sort of thing
is the idea behind this astrology
okay right so that's our selective list
of words and phrases from Shakespeare
which are still used in the English
language today I hope you found it
interesting if you'd like to answer a
quiz on this topic please go to the
website in vidcom and come and see us
again soon okay bye for now
you