"Comparisons are odorous." ;)

We are rummaging about in the dirt today--tilling up the garden plots, transplanting, delving out all the forgotten perennials in the raised beds...I enjoyed transplating all our teensy-weensy herb seedlings! They are no taller than apple-seeds and yet they are full of fragrance already! I can't wait to start cooking with them. We are a tad late with starting up the garden--lots of it ought to have been planted several weeks ago, but we are planting nonetheless. :) But updating you about the garden was not meant to be the point of this post...

 I've been realizing all of a sudden (haha-why did it take so long?) that Shakespeare's writings are the most quoted of all time! (Excluding the Bible, of course.) Generally when we think of Shakespeare we have a vague idea of men in funny, feathered hats, pink tights, and slashed doublets. Poison and daggers and "Woes-is-me" figures rather largely too. In most circles quoting Shakespeare is so old-school. No one does it anymore?...or do they?

That's what I'm realizing, and what most people don't ever understand. Scads of common words and terms and expressions in the English language were coined by William Shakespeare! What do I mean? Here are just a few examples:

All that glitters is not gold.

All's well that ends well.

Bated breath

Bag and baggage

Best foot forward

Breathed his last

Break the ice

Dead as a doornail

Eaten me out of house and home.

Forever and a day

The game is afoot

In my mind's eye

Kill with kindness

Knock-knock. Who's there? :D

Neither rhyme nor reason

Own flesh and blood

I could go on. And on. And on. There are hundreds of other examples I could use, but why don't you find them out for yourself? Here is a great website full of them: The Path Guy: Words and Phrases Coined by Shakespeare.
So I'm calling for a revolution--give Shakespeare a bit more recognition...and it makes you sound smart too! So next time you "Send someone packing" or see a "sorry sight" stand up a bit taller--you're quoting one of the most brilliant authors in all history. :)

Admit it- English is strange :)

Have you ever stopped to wonder at the strange language we speak? It's amazingly complex and unstable. No rule is applied the same way twice, and yet we who have spoke English from our birth, have somehow learned it and make shift with all we know. :P Hey, we've even contributed quite a few geniuses who, despite the handicap of the complexities involved, wrote something amazing. ;)

Lewis Carroll added some words into it....

Dickens used it to write his beloved novels....no problems there! :P

Shakespeare concocted many famous sayings, and will go down in history as the most amazing play-wright ever!

But when you really stop to consider the ins and outs of English, you must admit it is a little ridiculous! :P Hee-hee. So here is a funny essay I came across several years ago, and it still makes me laugh! English, is admittedly, ridiculous, but I love it anyway! :P

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple... English muffins were not invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So, one moose, 2 meese? So shouldn't the plural of choose be cheese?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

In what language do people recite at a play, and play at a recital?

Ship by truck, and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

When a house burns up, it burns down. You fill in a form by filling it out, and an alarm clock goes off by going on.

When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?

And a few more quotes to make you shake your head and laugh...

"If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur." — Doug Larson

"Not only does the English Language borrow words from other languages, it sometimes chases them down dark alleys, hits them over the head, and goes through their pockets." — Eddy Peters

"The quantity of consonants in the English language is constant. If omitted in one place, they turn up in another. When a Bostonian “pahks” his “cah,” the lost r’s migrate southwest, causing a Texan to “warsh” his car and invest in “erl wells.”

— Author Unknown

"If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers." — Doug Larson