41 Words and Phrases We Still Use Today Thanks to Shakespeare

April 23rd is William Shakespeare's birthday! (and also death day...But lets not dwell on the negatives.)

Even though the Bard was the bane of your existence in high school, we actually use a lot of words and phrases today that he invented.

But first, a brief history lesson:

Way back in Elizabethan times there weren't any dictionaries or official spellings of any words (including your own name!) because literacy rates were so low. If you could read or write, everything was spelled phonetically (imagine spelling things phonetically from an English accent...yeesh...)

Side note: have fun tracing any of your family's lineage in England before the 1700s. It's super fun trying to figure out who your family is when no one spelled their last names the same way every day. (It is not fun and I would not recommend that headache to anyone.)

My point is, Shakespeare had a lot of freedom when it came to words. Some people would get mad at him and say "You can't say that! That's not even a real word!" To which he probably replied "Yeah? What book does it say that in?"

So here are 41 words and phrases we use today thanks to good ol' Willy Shakes.

1. Addiction
2. All that glisters is not gold ("glisters" of course has been changed to "glitters")
3. As good luck would have it (shortened now to "As luck would have it")
4. Bedroom
5. Break the ice
6. Catch cold
7. Come what come may (Now simplified to "Come what may")
8. Critic
9. Dead as a doornail
10. Devil incarnate
11. Every dog will have its day
12. Excitement
13. Eyeball
14. Forever and a day
15. For goodness' sake
16. Full circle
17. The game is afoot
18. Give the devil his due
19. Good riddance (Green Day has Shakey to thank for that title!)
20. Heart of gold
21. Hot-blooded
22. Jaded (Looks like Green Day needs to thank Bill TWICE...)
23. Jealousy is the green-eyed monster
24. It was Greek to me
25. Heart of gold
26. In a pickle
27. Kill with kindness
28. Knock, knock, who's there? (Yeah. You have Shakespeare to thank for all those awful knock, knock jokes you heard as a kid.)
29. Love is blind
30. Off with his head (Shakespeare said it first, not the Queen of Hearts)
31. Seen better days
32. Send packing
33. Shooting star
34. Skim milk
35. Swagger
36. Too much of a good thing
37. Wear my heart upon my sleeve
38. What's done is done
39. Wild goose chase
40. You've got to be cruel to be kind
41. You can't have too much of a good thing

Essentially, none of us have probably gone a whole day without uttering a word that was given to us by Shakespeare. I can't even get through a single six-pack of GBF rock without running into one of his words in a band name, song title, or lyric!

(Source: PathGuy.com)