Talk Like Shakespeare Day

It's Talk Like Shakespeare Day today, my friends!
Today's the day we celebrate the birth
Of Shakespeare, whom we had to read in school;
We always had to look at all the notes
Beneath the verse on ev'ry single page.                                              5
But hark*!                                                                                        

              (What? You were doing so damn'd well!)

It's Talk Like Shakespeare Day, but did you know
English, speakers rock the verse each day.
We think not twice about it when we chat,                                        10
The cadence of our speech, tres poetique.                                      

When reading Henry Vee or such a play,
Use the stops and commas to assist:
They're your friends- they'll tell you when to breathe,
And make you sound as though you know what's up.

Of course, if your driver's license says "Falstaff, John", you can just speak in prose. Remember that Shakespeare (and his contemporaries, the Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights) were not considered fine artists. These were at the cultural level of TV movies-of-the-week, and people went to the theatre on the way to (or from) the brothel. Why is Shakespeare the guy we remember? He had a way with words, bringing all sorts of new words into the English language, including "assassin", "advertising", "addiction", "rant", "bedroom", and so many more. Some weren't as successful, such as "fishify, which of course means to turn someone/something into a fish. Extra points to anyone who can bring that one into full use in modern parlance. Also, Shakespeare plagiarized better than his contemporaries, lifting stuff like Romeo & Juliet straight from other sources, though his geography was dreadful: dude thought Bohemia had a coast. Had he posted on NowPublic, he'd probably get quite a few Needs Improvement flags.

Videos

off-the-cuff soliloquy

see larger video

sourced by Jordan Yerman

So- yeah, Talk Like Shakespeare Day: don't stress it, because you already do! Naturally, you'll want to dis like The Bard, so you'll need to check out Shakespearean insults. I'm not responsible for any butt-kickings that result from your using the above insults, just so we're on the same page.

You're of course welcome to add your own video clips. Go nuts. Hey, it can't be suckier than mine, right?

[* Hark!- "Hey", more at "Look out!"]