William Shakespeare is one of the great names of world culture, largely in part for his enormous contribution to literature. After all, he wrote hundreds of plays that entered the popular imagination. Furthermore, much of what is said today are words and expressions invented by Shakespeare and you probably didn't know. Therefore, be sure to check this text to identify the origin of some of them.
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The English language incorporated many expressions that before Shakespeare had never been used. Some of them are even words, nouns and verbs that although they have been used a lot recently, in reality, they were inventions of the bard. Check out some of the most iconic:
Manager (“Manager” in English)
Hard to think that such a common word in today's English came only from Shakespeare's literature. But it is worth remembering that a manager, in the sense of someone who takes care of the management of an organization, was a new thing in the days of the Bard. That's because Shakespeare was an author of modern plays, a time when capitalism, as we know it, came back to the fore after the Middle Ages. Thus, the “manager” was something typical of the time, but without a defined name. This expression then has as its first record an excerpt from the play “Love’s Labour’s Lost”.
“All that glitters is not gold”
This expression is said when we need to explain to someone that things and people are more than their appearances. In this case, this expression appears with Shakespeare in the play “Henry VI, Part I” and shows a characteristic of the author's work, which is the existence beyond appearance.
“You are speaking Greek”
You know when someone explains something to you that you just don't understand? We usually say that this person “is speaking Greek”, that is, in a totally different language. This expression is present in the play “Júlio César” and was widely incorporated all over the world, so it is possible to perceive the great influence of the author.
"To be or not to be?"
One of the most famous phrases in the world is from Shakespeare in one of his main works, the play “Hamlet”. Within the context of the play, the phrase represents the ambiguity of life and human nature in the face of the confusing challenges of living. In this case, in particular, it portrays the confusion of Prince Hamlet who needs to make an important decision.
