Each episode focuses on some aspect of Shakespeare’s language – usually, though not always, on a single word Shakespeare uses. But each time discussion broadens out, to look at some aspect of language in general, or of English as we use it today. Best to start with episode 1 and work through them in…
The phrase 'good my lord' is the topic of this episode, which looks in general at 'words in curious orders and combinations'.
The episode is all about punctuation, and begins with Shakespeare's sentence 'Eyes, do you see!'. Notice the exclamation mark.
The episode looks at some words beginning with 'wh-' which are used to ask questions, like 'what' and 'when'. Most attention is given to 'why'.
The general theme of this episode is 'units of measurement', and we begin with Shakespeare's word 'fathom'.
Shakespeare's word 'fardel' is the starting-point for this episode, which also looks at the topic of 'suffixes'.
This episode's word is 'blessed'. We look at the general theme of 'language contact and language change'.
The starting-point is the word 'shrewd'. We also look at how words can start off meaning something nasty, and end up meaning something nice.
This episode's word is 'panda' (spelt 'pander' today. The episode also looks at the theme of 'proper and common nouns'.
In this episode the Shakespeare word is 'discandied', and we also discuss the 'death of words'.
The episode starts with Shakespeare's use of the word 'bully. It then goes on to talk about 'beliefs about word origins'.
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