Good morrow, gentlemen and gentlewomen!

‘Tis April 23rd, the Speak Like Shakespeare Day! Today our noble man would’ve turned 445, and to honor this occasion, everyone is encouraged to speak forsoothly. Here are a few simple rules to teach you how to speak like an Elizabethan.

1. Instead of you, say thou. Instead of y’all, say thee. Thou art a knave! I shall not trust thee.
2. Rhymed couplets are all the rage.
3. Men are Sirrah, ladies are Mistress, and your friends are all called Cousin.
4. Instead of cursing, try calling your tormentors jackanapes or canker-blossoms or poisonous bunch-back’d toads.
5. Don’t waste time saying “it,” just use the letter “t”. ’Tis, t’will, I’ll do’t.
6. Verse for lovers, prose for ruffians, songs for clowns.
7. When in doubt, add the letters “eth” to the end of verbs. He runneth, he trippeth, he falleth.
8. To add weight to your opinions, try starting them with methinks, mayhaps, in sooth or wherefore.
9. When wooing ladies: try comparing her to a summer’s day. If that fails, say “Get thee to a nunnery!”
10. When wooing lads: try dressing up like a man. If that fails, throw him in the Tower, banish his friends and claim the throne.

Shakespearean Insults

Elizabethans loved thinking up clever and terrible things to call each other. In fact, it was a measure of a man’s wit! Imagination and images were their ammunition. So next time you chose to express displeasure with someone, try something along these lines:

  • I scorn you, scurvy companion!
  • Methink’st thou art a general offense and every man should beat thee!
  • You are a shallow cowardly hind, and you lie.
  • Thine face is not worth sunburning.
  • You scullion! You rampallian! I’ll tickle your catastrophe!
  • Hence, horrible villain, or I’ll spurn thine eyes like balls before me; I’ll unhair thy head, Thou shalt be whipp’d with wire, and stew’d'in brine, smarting in lingering pickle!

If you’re a wench of few words, try something a little more concise:

  • Thou craven fly-bitten minnow!
  • Thou caluminous tickle-brained fustilarian!
  • O illiterate loiterer!
  • Thou loggerheaded beetle-headed clack-dish!
  • Thou lumpish knotty-pated apple-john!
  • Thou dissembling crook-pated moldwarp!

“He that cuteth me off on the road,
I breathe defiance to thine ears!
By my troth, thou art cupshot -
And like a rotten egg, tho art unfit
for any place but hell!”

I beseech thee, O Deerlings, to speak like thou doth a ruffled collar around thy neck!