April 23 marked Shakespeare Day in the UK and to celebrate we’ve picked characters from Shakespeare’s plays for this month's Word for Wednesday theme. William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616. Scholars believe his birthday and death day were both April 23. His work—which is still wildly popular today—includes 38 plays and over a hundred poems. Learn more about how Shakespeare influenced the English language here. So far we’ve looked at Romeo from Romeo and Juliet, Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Falstaff who appears in four of Shakespeare’s plays. Our final Shakespearea...
April 23 marks Shakespeare Day in the UK and to celebrate we’ve picked characters from Shakespeare’s plays for this month's Word for Wednesday theme. William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616. Scholars believe his birthday and death day were both April 23. His work—which is still wildly popular today—includes 38 plays and over a hundred poems. Learn more about how Shakespeare influenced the English language here. So far we’ve looked at at Romeo from Romeo and Juliet and Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Today’s Shakespearean character is Sir John ...
April 23 marks Shakespeare Day in the UK and to celebrate we’ve picked characters from Shakespeare’s plays for this month's Word for Wednesday theme. William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and died in 1616. Scholars believe his birthday and death day were both April 23. His work—which is still wildly popular today—includes 38 plays and over a hundred poems. Learn more about how Shakespeare influenced the English language here. Last week, we looked at at Romeo from Romeo and Juliet.Today’s character is Puck—a fairy who appears in Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Th...
Over the year, a few of our blog posts have mentioned words that derive from people or fictional characters: ‘quixotic’ from Don Quixote, ‘malapropism’ from Mrs Malaprop, ‘puckish’ from Puck, ‘July and August’ from Julius and Augustus Caesar, and many more. This week I thought I’d take a look at Charles Dickens, the famous nineteenth-century author, after whom the word ‘Dickensian’ was coined. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘Dickensian’ as an adjective used to describe something that is ‘reminiscent of the novels of Charles Dickens, especially in suggesting the poor social conditions or comically re...
Over the last few posts we’ve been looking at words with roots in literature – make sure you check out our articles on words from Harry Potter, the word ‘quixotic’, and the word ‘malapropism’. Today, we’ve chosen to look at the word ‘puckish’. ‘Puckish’ is an adjective that describes someone who has a mischievous, playful sense of humour – like the fairy Puck. Unlike Don Quixote and Mrs Malaprop, Puck does not come from one specific text, but is a type of character from English folklore, also known as Robin Goodfellow or Hobgoblin. The word Puck refers to both an individual mischievous wood sprite or fairy, and a grou...
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