While fielding questions about a student’s proposed Extended Essay dealing with the presence of Shakespearian language in 21C English (you can find the thread at the bottom of the page EE tips & comments ), I find myself wondering what exactly makes so many Shakespearian phrases so memorable. How is it that so many people who have never read Shakespeare, or don’t remember whatever they have read, still understand and even use phrases first written over 400 years ago?

I would suggest that Shakespearian language continues alive in English in three broad areas: in single words; in deliberate quotations; and in memorable phrases. The single words form the largest (but most invisible) category – although, in many cases, they’re only ‘shakespearian’ because their first recorded usage is in some work by Shakespeare, and they may well have been in common use at the time, but unrecorded. In addition, one interesting site ( 10 Words Shakespeare Invented Which We Still Use Today | Language Trainers USA Blog) points out that Shakespeare regularly created new words by simply adding prefixes or suffixes to existing common words (e.g. ‘arch-villain’ or ‘inaudible’).

Deliberate quotations exist in contemporary media, as pointed out by another site ( https://screenrant.com/famous-movie-quotes-actually-shakespeare/ ), which provides a number of links and references. However, is such quotation a significant part of the English language? Or is it a jokey little game that amuses script-writers and actors and critics who can detect the witty re-use of Shakespeare – but that actually passes un-noticed by practically everyone else. Even probably the most common and recognisable quote of all – ‘To be or not to be’ – may be recognised, but not identified as by Shakespeare. Indeed, it’s probably less a quotation than a meme – a commonly-recognised structure which can be applied in different contexts: ‘to shop or not to shop’ or ‘to go or not to go’.

The most interesting category of Shakespearian language in use is that of memorable phrases, since these survive because they are expressive and satisfying still today. So what is it that makes Shakespeare’s phrases so often so memorable? Having skimmed through a long list of such phrases given in Bill Bryson’s short and lively biography ‘Shakespeare’, I suggest some keys to Shakespeare’s memorability.

plain, simple language e.g. "into thin air" or “budge an inch”…

The vocabulary may be basic and monosyllabic, but it is vividly used: obviously air is ‘thin’ but the phrase identifies and emphasises the insubstantiality; while (not) “budge an inch” provides a precise and expressive image.

physically evocative metaphor – e.g. "milk of human kindness", "tower of strength" ...

The most obviously ‘poetic’ type of phrase, transferring the comforting associations of milk to ‘kindness’, and the weight and stability of a tower to ‘strength’.

two words/ideas opposed e.g. "more sinned against than sinning" or "to be or not to be"…

These binary pairs sum up so succinctly a more complex idea through the repetition of basic words grammatically contrasted. There is incisive wit in such simplicity, based on the easily memorable use of just two elements.  

complementary pairs: e.g. "bag and baggage" or "play fast and loose" ...

Again, the use of simple pairs, but here the words support each other rather than contrast each other … and anyway, the words sound so good together, don’t they?

So what can we learn from this? Or, more directly, what can we teach our students about the effective, even powerful, use of language? The key element of the memorable phrases above is that they are simple – or rather, that they are deceptively simple. The vocabulary is generally basic, but behind the words is considerable careful thought. You don’t arrive at lucid contrasting pairs of words without having thought out in detail the opposing ideas and concepts which create the contrast. The choice of words then becomes a matter of finding the most direct and clear way of expressing the idea.

Students should understand that, even if they have limited resources of vocabulary, they can still use such basic language to express sophisticated ideas… provided that they have thought carefully and methodically.