If you think Shakespeare is a faraway giant, a thing of the past that’s just good for museums, merchandising and celebrating a glorious heritage I must warn you: you’re wrong, you’re so wrong. Everyday English is full of words and idioms created by the Bard, and I’m not thinking about some of his famous quotes like “To be or not to be”, I’m thinking about stuff we still use in conversation. Some of these expressions were not created by Shakespeare, but he made them incredibly popular and brought them to our days. Do you want to know what idioms you use are a living testimony of the genius of William Shakespeare? Follow me and let’s discover the Bard in each of us.
1) Break the ice
I told you, didn’t I? Shakespeare is not a dusty relic…
In case you don’t know, breaking the ice means to start getting to know people avoiding social awkwardness and formality, making more relaxed with a person whom you have not met earlier.
"That's a lovely dress," I say to break the ice.
Break the ice as a metaphor made its first appearance in The Taming of the Shrew (Act 1, Scene 2) as a term for a social gesture:
If it be so, sir, that you are the man
Must stead us all, and me amongst the rest,
And if you break the ice and do this feat,
Achieve the elder, set the younger free For our access,
Whose hap shall be to have her
Will not so graceless be to be ingrate.
2) Dead as a doornail
This idiom is used to indicate that something is lifeless.
"It was quarter to one, and Portland was as dead as a doornail," said Mrs. Johnson, 78.”
“As dead as a doornail” is a very old English phrase that Shakespeare used and popularized in Henry IV Part 2:
Look on me well: I have eat no meat these five days; yet, come thou and thy five men, and if I do not leave you all as dead as a doornail, I pray God I may never eat grass more.
3) In a pickle
This idiom is used to refer to a difficult situation or a troubling quandary.
As I have said before, education is in a pickle.
Shakespeare associated drinking too much to troubles, and if you think about it it makes sense, since many pickling processes use alcohol. In "The Tempest," Act 5, Scene 1, King Alonso asks his jester, Trinculo, who got drunk and is in trouble because of it:
How camest thou in this pickle?
And Trinculo answers:
I have been in such a pickle since I saw you last ...
4) Night owl
Are you a night owl? If you heard someone calling themselves or others “a night owl”, you know this expression is used to refer to people who stay up late at night or goes to bed late.
If you're a night owl, work during the night
I am a night owl: I still go to bed very late.
At first “nightowl” and “owl” were synonyms: in 1581 Bell and Foxe included it in their translated work Against Jerome Osorius. Its figurative use as a reference to people began in the 16th century. Shakespeare used it in 1594 in The Rape of Lucrece:
This said, his guilty hand pluck’d up the latch,
And with his knee the door he opens wide.
The dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch:
Thus treason works ere traitors be espied.
5) To catch a cold
I know, I know, crazy, right? Whenever you complain about a flu you’re talking Shakespeare!
If you catch a cold, we will find out who you got it from.
The Bard actually came up with the idea that cold caused illness for the first time in "Cymbeline" (Act 1, Scene 4), when Iachimo says to Posthumus Leonatus:
We will have these things set down by lawful counsel, and straight away for Britain, lest the bargain should catch cold and starve...
6) To lie low
To conceal oneself; to remain hidden.
“Will we mumble apologies, lie low, try to atone?”
Even though many variants existed since the 13th century, Shakespeare used it in its present form in Much Ado About Nothing, 1599:
If he could right himself with quarreling,
Some of us would lie low.
7) Wild goose chase
This expression is used when referring to a futile search, a fruitless errand; a useless and often lengthy pursuit.
The biggest torture-fueled wild-goose chase, of course, is the war in Iraq.
In Act 2, Scene 4 of Romeo and Juliet Mercutio, losing a battle of wits with Romeo, asks Benvolio to intervene; but Romeo says that he will declare himself the winner if Mercutio gives up and uses the phrase, deriving from horse-riding, “Switch and spurs, switch and spurs, or I’ll cry a match.” Mercutio then continues the equestrian reference by using the image of a wild-goose chase:
Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five.
Ludwig’s wrap-up
Even though the very mention of William Shakespeare makes some people cringe and feel daunted by the height of the Bard, we all use his words, not only when quoting his most famous and easily recognizable phrases, but also in everyday conversation. We’re talking Shakespeare when complaining about a cold or a pickle we’re in, for instance, so stop thinking he’s as dead as a doornail and enjoy the Bard in your conversation!
