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Usenet Posted 19 years ago
English in UK

Shakespearean curses

Hello everyone,
I teach my students curses that appear in Sheakespearean English. As an introduction to Macbeth this approach seems to me very promising to raise the students`s interest.
I did not find the modern English meaning of
vended
fat-kidneyed
dizzy - eyed
doghearted
milk-livered
hell-hated
beetle-headed
pignut
maggot pie
Perhaps members of this group can help me.
Regards Achim from Germany
  

Top answer

[/nq] What a very narrow subject. It's amazing, the degree of specialism these days... [nq:1]I did not find the modern English meaning of[/nq] Most of them will not have modern English equivalents.

  • [/nq] What a very narrow subject.
  • It's amazing, the degree of specialism these days...
  • [nq:1]I did not find the modern English meaning of[/nq] Most of them will not have modern English equivalents.
  • However, none of the terms which you cite are curses.
  • They are insults; there is a distinct difference.
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10 Answers
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At 14:36:04 on Sun, 7 Jan 2007, Achim Richter (Email Removed) wrote in :
[nq:1]I teach my students curses that appear in Sheakespearean English.[/nq]
What a very narrow subject. It's amazing, the degree of specialism these days...
[nq:1]I did not find the modern English meaning of[/nq]
Most of them will not have modern English equivalents. However, none of the terms which you cite
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[nq:1]Hello everyone, I teach my students curses that appear in Sheakespearean English. As an introduction to Macbeth this approach seems to me very promising to raise the students`s interest.[/nq]
You need to know the cultural/phonetics of a language to understand a curse, for instance my daughter uses "Oh! Sugar" as an expletive. I leave it up to the reader to work out what she is not
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[nq:1]pignut[/nq]
Pignut is a plant, related to carrot, which has round nodules on the root which used to be grubbed up and eaten by pigs (and probably poor people). It is found on grassland in parts of England. I don't see how this relates to a curse, but it might be used to imply that somebody is lacking resources to the extent that he must eat animal food.
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[nq:1]Hello everyone, I teach my students curses that appear in Sheakespearean English. As an introduction to Macbeth this approach seems ... eyed doghearted milk-livered ****-hated beetle-headed pignut maggot pie Perhaps members of this group can help me. Regards Achim from Germany[/nq]
Not any help - but I did find this when looking on the web - thought they were cute.
Shakespearean Insu
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[nq:2]pignut[/nq]
[nq:1]Pignut is a plant, related to carrot, which has round nodules on the root which used to be grubbed up and eaten by pigs (and probably poor people).[/nq]
I ate these as a child :-)
Nice nutty flavour IIRC.

Dave Fawthrop Google Groups is IME the worst* method of accessing usenet. GG subscribers would be well advised get a newsreader, say Agent, and a
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[nq:1]Hello everyone, I teach my students curses that appear in Sheakespearean English. As an introduction to Macbeth this approach seems to me very promising to raise the students`s interest.[/nq]
If you can find it, you might try this book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI
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[nq:1]Hello everyone, I teach my students curses that appear in Sheakespearean English. As an introduction to Macbeth this approach seems to me very promising to raise the students`s interest.[/nq]
If you were teaching them curses found in Shakespeare, it might be. But using http://www.rhymezone.com
suggests:
vended
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[nq:1]Hello everyone, I teach my students curses that appear in Sheakespearean English. As an introduction to Macbeth this approach seems ... eyed doghearted milk-livered ****-hated beetle-headed pignut maggot pie Perhaps members of this group can help me. Regards Achim from Germany[/nq]
I like "pignut".
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19:05, domenica 7 gennaio 2007, John Dean:
[nq:1]vended - isn't in Shakespeare. It usually just means "sold"[/nq]
"Venduto!" (sold) is a typical insult shouted to football referees in Italy.

°¿°
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I suspect that with the contemporary distances
most actors stand away from the smell of the
crowd some of the implicit characterisations of
Shakespeare's have been lost.
I suggest it is a characterisation of strabismus,
which can be eso- or exo-tropic, and means
no more or less than cross-eyed, or boss-eyed,
as per Jimmy Finlayson of 20s and 30s movies,
squinting Ba

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