The Sundays The Bard and The Youth of Today

A Verse! A Verse! My Kingdom for a Verse!!

The jangle was kicking in the gears
Would people remember the name in a hundred years?

One third of youth today do not know who Shakespeare was

Hideous clowns make me throw… up!

I know those are not the lyrics but everybody is afraid of clowns
It goes back to the Black Death where people would dress up
Stand on the street corners to warn pedestrians to stay clear
Down the block, a house, draped in a striped fumigation tent
The dead, faces white, were carted off
With a blood red nose,
The clown says, “Stay away fool!”
For those that did not know how to read

Or not to be shall thou be
No other questions

Shakespeare escaped the Black Death to write incredible plays and poems
He gave his own begotten son, Hamnet
Reborn as the Prince of Denmark
Taken by The Plague
But the kids of today do not know the past
Except perhaps a certain someone, except perhaps a certain someone…

Here’s where the story ends

It’s that little souvenir, of a terrible year
Which make my eyes feel sore
And whoever would’ve thought, that the books that you bought
Were all I loved you for?



My inspiration and the 31% story. And my ipod.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF


Those that don't know who he was, more than likely use phases that where written by Shakespeare. For example.

Make an ass of yourself.

Son of a bitch.

All of a sudden.

As good luck would have it.

At one fell swoop.

Just a few examples there. To many more to mention.

a reply to: alldaylong


He also gave us new words those youths use all the time to!

Like: "addiction", "manager", and "uncomfortable"

Again, to name a few!

mentalfloss.com - 20 Words We Owe to Shakespeare

I had fun mixing "chorus" and "verse" (both as a form and as its musical usage) and the famous Richard III quote!

It is quite amazing that 31% of 1000 kids asked didn't know. And only 4% or less know nationally celebrated modern playwrights.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Good point.

Shakespeare introduced new words into The English Language. Thousands in fact.

Today we still use about 3,000 of them.

a reply to: alldaylong


The 422 Words That Shakespeare Invented.

They start off with a google of how many words Shakespeare invented: over 1700!!

They then explain that some are just the first known written example the OED could find written down. The words were in use but the earliest evidence is The Bard.

The list they have of 422 are truly invented by WS. Includes things like, "bedroom", "go between", "employment", "hint", "leapfrog", "moonbeam", "pious", "skim milk", to impede, unscratched, etc.

Most of our words are technology related like "wayback machine" being accepted as real word, for example.

Reminds of the argument Shakespeare being more important than Sigmund Freud in defining the modern human psyche.