Sinister: She, me, I, you, everybody, everybody.

[Schaffenberger]

Neil writes:
> 
> Did you know (don't you just hate it when people say that, and when they
> rush up to you saying guess what, guess what?) that Shakespeare used around
> 17,000 words in all his plays, and that about one tenth of them he made up
> himself?  Presumably we're talking about adding endings, as opposed to say,
> inventing a whole word like fgtho'd (to rhyme with Orange), but still, I
> give the man a lot of respect for that.  In fact it inspires me to enter
> this fine and dandy rhyming verse competition.  I have a good knowledge of
> rhymes, as I knew someone called Gabriel Cheng, whom I nicknamed Table Leg
> on the basis that it rhymes with his name.  It does you know.  Try harder.
> Believe.

  Actually, I'm a linguistics minor, and this stuff fascinates me (as 
does she and me, but we'll save that for another grammar lesson).  
However, it's a common fallacy that Shakespeare made up 10% of his 
written vocabulary.  Most scholars of the subject would suggest that 
nearly all of the words he used were already in use.  He, however, was 
the first to commit them to print.  Makes sense, considering that some  of 
the people using these words were not of a literate class.  Where it gets 
really interesting is that certain words and expressions correspond to 
the various classes represented by characters in his plays.  (See also 
Faulkner and Twain, who utilize this same accuracy in dialect and 
regional expression.)  So, you're partially right, and 99.9% of the 
population would probably assert that WS did indeed make up 10% of his 
vocabulary.  However, since I have an exam coming up on this subject, I 
thought I'd share my two pence.  

  Belle and Seb content?  I can't think of any words in their songs that 
rhyme with orange.  But I like it when I mishear "be honest" as "be us" 
in Get Me Away, I'm Dying.

  Luff,
  Kristen  
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