For goodness sake, it is not a foregone conclusion that all is doom and gloom. I refuse to budge an inch from my belief that all will be well.
All the phrases in italics are attributed to William Shakespeare, that great master of words, who was born on this day in 1564 and died on this day in 1616. But, what a lot happened between those dates! The world of literature and, indeed, the English language is far richer than it would have been if that great playwright had never been born.
Here are some of the phrases which I’ll bet you didn’t realize were coined by Mr. Shakespeare:
“Give the devil his due”
“All our yesterdays”
“Never a borrower nor a lender be”
“As good luck would have it”
“As merry as the day is long”
“With bated breath”
“Cold comfort”
“Dead as a doornail”
“Devil incarnate”
“For goodness sake”
“Heart of gold”
“Jealousy is the green-eyed monster”
“Set my teeth on edge”
The list goes on with many more phrases that he coined or made popular, but isn’t it wonderful? Just for fun, try to work some of these into your conversation today or maybe you should listen to yourself and see how many you use in your everyday speech without thinking where they came from.
We owe much to this genius who enriched our vocabulary and the field of literature. Those years between 1564 and 1616 were well spent! Happy birthday, Mr. William Shakespeare.
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