SHAKESPEARE'S TONGUE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21159, 16 April 1932, Page 9 (Supplement)

SHAKESPEARE'S TONGUE.

WORDS STILL SPOKEN. Mr. TT. J. Massingham, in an article in the Fortnightly Review, says that the language spoken in tho Cotswold districts of England is " tho only one known to 1110 which preserves in a living matrix what is left of our Renaissance heritage, and ' tho tongue that Shakespeare spake.' Hero are a few of Iho Elizabethan words that wero heard at tho Globe more than 300 years ago, and are heard to-day in tho inns between Chipping Canipdcn and Stow-on-tho-Wuld ":

" Away with," in the sense of put up with, as Shakespeare used it in the second part of "King Henry tho Fourth "doxy," an overdressed woman; "lickerish," in the slightly changed modern souse of mawkish or luscious; "lush," just as Shakespeare used it in " Midsummer Night's Dream " ; " mazzard, for head ("Hamlet" and "Othello");

" plash," a small pool (" Taming of the Shrew ") ; " orts," for leavings (" Iroilus and Cressida"); " quar," by which Ben Johnson meant, and the hiilnion mean, a quarry; " puck-foisted," for bewitched; " renoague," to renounce a job (" King Lear" and "Antony and Cleopatra"); " rune," for whisper, which is probably the Scandinavian word that has floated away from its original ritualistic significance; "scathe," lor damage ("Richard tho Third"); " slobberly," for sloppy ("King Henry the Fifth"); " snotch," for twang, though no longer of the bowstring ("Julius Caesar"): "tire." tor coax (" Titus Andronicus ") ; " twit," for blab ("Two Gentlemen of Verona") ; " cark," for care; " fettle," a verb meaning to put in order; "glim," for light; and " coot en," for fool—these words still tell tho ghost, of Shakespeare that be is in England and not in Bohemia.