Category: Writing

Macbeth arrives on stage refection on his treasonous plans having second thoughts to everything. Even though now is the perfect time to kill the king and for fill his destiny he accepts that it is not a good thing to do. “First as his kinsman and his subject. Strong both against the deed; then as his host, Who should against his murderer shut the door.” He realities that as a close relation and nobleman that killing the king is virtually the opposite to what he is supposed to do as family and as a loyal subject. Also that as a host, the host must protect the guests and shield them from murderers not the other way round. He also fears the inevitable repercussions of his actions even if he goes uncaught. When Lady Macbeth then arrives he announces that the plan must not continue, Duncan has done nothing bad to him and has only ever honored him, especially now. Lady Macbeth is furious, he promised to do this for the both of them and she says she will have done anything if she promised it, even kill a child. She then essentially says that she is more of a man than him. She then goes on to explain her plan and that they cant fail. He agrees enthusiastically at this and finishes the first scene by saying; “Away, and mock the time with fairest show. False face must hide what the false heart doth know.”

The King arrives at the marvel that is Macbeths castle is greeted with hollow warm arms by Lady Macbeth. It is a short scene but it has a lot of dramatic irony embedded into it, we know Lady Macbeths true treasonous intentions however the king and all of his loyal subjects are unaware of the kings impending doom and instead focus on the lovely castle.

“And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him, to his home before us. Fair and noble hostess, We are your guest tonight.”

Scene summary:

Lady Macbeth arrives and changes everything. She is introduced to us as a person of extreme willpower and determination. She is willing to do anything to get into a position of power, in this case queen. She goes into a soliloquy explaining how she is unsure if Macbeth has enough cruelty in him and that he is “too full of the milk of human kindness”. She is also willing to become a vessel of the witches and other missionary’s of darkness. She is willing to do anything to get to queen and physically wants to be “filled from the crown to the toe top full of direst cruelty.” Have “Thick blood. Stop up the access and passage to remorse, that no compunctions visiting of nature shake my purpose, nor keep peace between the effect and it!” It almost seems she is desperate to become queen.

Paragraph:

Lady Macbeth uses metaphors to demonstrate her willpower and determination.

“…Come you spirits that tend mortal thoughts, unsex me here…”

She is willing for envoys of darkness to come down and physically change her body and gender from female to male using dark and forbidden methods that are considered evil. She is essentially saying ‘make me less of a woman and more of a man.’ She is prepared to call in forces of extreme evil and chaos to make her dream happen and fulfill her husbands destiny/fate as well as her own. In Shakespeare’s time women where seen to be inferior to men, thus being she wants to throw away the stereotype and responsibility of a woman of the time and adopt instead the willpower and strength of a man.

Duncan discusses the execution of the Thane of Cawdor until Macbeth, Banquo, Angus and Rosse arrive. Then the king states to all “Sons, kinsmen, thanes, And to all whose places are the nearest, know, We will establish our estate upon Our eldest, Malcom; whom we name hereafter The Prince of Cumberland…” This deeply troubles Macbeth for the witches foretold he would be king and until this night he thought this would come naturally with fate however he now realizes he will have to “fall down” or “o’erleap” for now if the king dies Macbeth will not take his place immediatly. It is at this point in the play where he states to the audience/reader his true intentions, “Stars, hide you fires (god look away), Let not light see my black and true desires (let nobody know my true intention); The eye wink at the hand (let my eyes stay shut while my hand works for the eye will fear the result), yet it has to be (fate has spoken therefore it must happen, which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.”

Upon the heath the witches did meet, after the battle was lost by the Norwegians and won by the king’s men. Macbeth arrived shortly afterwards accompanied by Banquo, the kings other captain and Macbeth’s close friend just as the witches predicted. Macbeth was then told parts of his future, how he would soon be hailed thane of Cawdor and later, king. Banquo is then told his children and family line would be kings but not himself. The witches vanish, and Banquo is left a little skeptical until Rosse and Angus arrive and inform Macbeth the he is the thane of Cawdor. He is immediately thrown into deep thought about him becoming king and the fate of the current king for to wish ill upon him is treason.

Act one scene one Witch One: Fair is “foul and foul is fair”

Act one scene two Macbeth (the first line of his ever): “So foul and fair a day I have not seen”

A wounded soldier reports the epic battle between Macdonwald (the vile rebel, the Norwegian lords and king, the Thane of Cawdor and his mercenary army) fighting against courageous Macbeth and Banquo to Duncan, king of Scotland. After a long battle where Macbeth, Banquo and the kings army are victorious after they ‘unseamed’ Macdonwald, captured the thane of Cawdor and fined the Norwegian king 10,000 gold coins.

“For brave Macbeth (well he deserves that name), Disdaining fortune, with his brandished steel, Which smoked with bloodied execution,”

Three otherworldly witches meet somewhere in dark, stormy weather speak the future and discuss where and when they will meet again. “When the battle is lost and won” “Fair is foul and foul is fair” “Where the place? Upon the Heath. There to meet with Macbeth.” I feel these witches will have a large role in the play, like in Romeo and Juliet (act one scene one) they first introduced the Capulets and Montagues whitch a lot of the play was related to.

Shakespeare demonstrates these beings to be otherworldly for the pentameter they speak in constantly changes. All humans speak in Trochaic Pentameter however the witches speak in multiple formats. The witches themselves needed to be otherworldly. They were considered agents of evil that dabbled in black magic to tell the future, conduct dark rituals with the devil, making potions and poisons over a hot cauldron and create plagues and diseases to cripple their enemies. They rejected holy teachings and instead defiled them and there was often in mythology and stories there was often a Black Cat nearby (in the case of Macbeth, Greymalkin).

The play was originally performed in Shakespeare’s original london theater burnt down after a cannon accidentally set fire to a tapestry in a play of King Henry the Eighth. It was later reconstructed down the road to the original construction specifications.

Every person is unique. We all look different, think different, feel different and speak different. Every person has at least one friend. They treat that person differently to say, a stranger walking past them on the street. When you talk to that friend, occasionally a bit of slang is thrown in and maybe over time you switch words around that disobey the basic rules of English language and literature to make speaking or conveying information a little easier or maybe even they just felt like it. This could be a one off thing or if it repeated enough between people it could be considered Idiomatic. I would go so far as to hypothesis that ” the way we text says a lot about our personalities” and that “the way we communicate says a lot about our time”. And that together these two things have improved the way we communicate in 2020.

Idiomatic language is essentially personalised language. In the words of the Cambridge English dictionary, it is a style of expression in writing, speech, or music that is typical of a particular period, person, or group. Today, the change in the English idiom is being driven largely by us, the youth and texting, tweeting and social media but some text idioms have crept into common day to day conversation even with older people (eg the contraction LOL – laugh out loud). It is most likely used more often in text conversation for it is easier to de-crypt. I have been texting for a while now, and I feel that I have two text languages, one formal and one highly informal. My formal language is obeying the standard rules of English (grammar, structure, punctuation, verb usage etc) however my informal texting language shifts and changes constantly depending on my mood with the one exception where I say what I want to say when I say no matter what the situation or structure. I have a friend very similar to this he is very formal around family and peers but when around friend online he switches words and changes letters like typing “oak” instead of ‘ok’ or “Yaes” instead of ‘yes’. This could be for comedic reasons or he just loves to butcher english grammar. He uses this mostly when typing short sentences or one word answers. Doing it this way makes sure that the reader can interpret the word easier however if it is surrounded by other words than it gets much harder to understand. My grandfather and father however ALWAYS text in full, grammatically correct sentences with correct punctuation and spelling. This could partially be due to his courier in newspaper editing.

Idioms can also be expressions that have a meaning different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words in the expression. Because English contains many idioms, non-native English speakers have difficulties making sense of idioms and idiomatic expressions. Phrases like “pins and needles” – who would know that that means being nervous or “piece of cake” means easy; unless you are exposed to an English speaker, every day. Text conversations also use a lot of slang, not just contractions and acronyms. Slang is a type of language that is informal and playful and what’s “in” changes over time. The slang of the past is different than the slang of today, but some slang has carried over into the present. Slang also varies by region and culture which can make it difficult texting to friends from overseas

Shakespeare changed the English language too. He invented around 1770 words (tho the exact number is heavily debated) that are still in common use today ( http://www.pathguy.com/shakeswo.html ). He contracted words (the dawn as opposed to dawning), joined words (faint-hearted, fancy-free), added prefixes and suffixes (hot-blooded, ill-tempered). He took the idioms of the Elizabethan age and made them cool. Shakespeare wrote in the idiom of his day, “break the ice”, “brevity is the soul of wit” and “love is blind” are all great answers.

To understand the root of idioms then you must understand the root of the english language itself and the similarities between its founding languages. Whilst the english language incorporated 70% of latin words and was made from many many other languages like French, German and Spanish the idioms do not always translate the same into them. The phrase “Two birds with one stone” is one such example. In Portuguese (Matar dois coelhos de uma cajadada só) it means “Kill two rabbits with one blow”, in German (Zwei Flieger mit einer Klappe schlagen) it means “Two flies with one clap” and my personal favourite Indonesian (Sekali merengkuh dayung dua tiga pulau terlampaui) Overcome two or three islands with one paddle/stroke (for more examples, visit https://leaftranslations.com/ultimate-guide-translating-idioms/).

Changing Idioms demonstrate the ongoing evolution of english language. Language that is grammatically incorrect one day can become the idiom the next day and obsolete in the future. This can be compared to the introduction of the apostrophe to shorten words in the English around the 1500’s. Another example of evolving idioms is the declining use of genitive and accusative forms in english and the disappearance of the dative form. Words like “whose” and “his” are among the few remaining examples of genitive language cases. Similarly “whom” and “him” are among the few remaining examples of the accusative case whereas thou and thee have disappeared. How long will today’s idioms survive or will they fall by the side of the evolutionary road. Here’s a nice quote… “That’s the beautiful thing about language. It is always changing and always developing. When a language stops changing for either an individual or as a whole society, that’s a bad sign for that language. One of the hallmarks of a living, robust language is that it is always changing. That means that the forms, the grammar, the words, the vocabulary, the phrases, the tone, they’re going to keep changing over time in spoken language, in text messaging, in whatever the next version of social media is that we’re going to have. There will be new things to learn, new forms of language to play with, and new ways to express ourselves”.

Introduction: Introduce the Hypothesis and analyse the language feature “Idiomatic”.

Paragraph 1: Statement about Idiomatic language and how it is used very often by many and goes virtually unnoticed.

Paragraph 2: Give sets of examples (probably from my own text conversations).

Paragraph 3: Link the conversations together and analyse the difference between them.

Paragraph 4: Further analysis to understand the differences and (maybe) other embedded language features.

Paragraph 5: Group together ideas and prepare for conclusion.

Conclude: Finish with summary of all above.

Paragraph 1: Statement about Idiomatic language and how it is used very often by many and goes virtually unnoticed.

Every person is unique. We all look different, think differently, feel different and speak differently. Every person has at least one friend and maybe hundreds. They treat each friend differently than say, a stranger walking past them on the street. When you talk to those friends, occasionally a bit of slang is thrown in and maybe over time you switch words around that disobey the basic rules of English language and literature to make speaking or conveying information a little easier. This could be a one off thing or if repeated enough between people or a community or an ethnicity; it could become their own idiom.

Paragraph 2: Give sets of examples (probably from my own text conversations).

Idiomatic language is essentially personalised language. In the words of the Cambridge English dictionary, it is a style of expression in writing, speech, or music that is typical of a particular period, person, or group .

ms can also be expressions that have a meaning different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words in the expression. Because English contains many idioms, non-native English speakers have difficulties making sense of idioms and idiomatic expressions. Phrases like “pins and needles” – who would know that that means being nervous?? Or “piece of cake” means easy; unless you are exposed to an English speaker, every day.

Today, the change in the English idiom is being driven largely by us, the youth and texting, tweeting and social media but some text idioms have crept into common day to day conversation even with older people (eg the contraction LOL – laugh out loud). It is most likely used more often in text conversation for it is easier to de-crypt. I have been texting for a while now, and I feel that I have two text languages, one formal and one highly informal. My formal language is obeying the standard rules of English (grammar, structure, punctuation, verb usage etc) however my informal texting language shifts and changes constantly depending on my mood with the one exception where I say what I want to say when I say no matter what the situation or structure.

I would go so far as to hypothesis that ” the way we text says a lot about our personalities” and that “the way we communicate says a lot about our time”. And that together these two things have improved the way we communicate in 2020.

My grandfather and father ALWAYS text in full, grammatically correct sentences with correct punctuation and spelling. They think that this is going to save the English language and make a good example for me but it makes them seem formal, stuffy and old fashioned (it doesn’t mean I don’t love them!).

In contrast, I have a friend who is very formal around family and adults but when around friends online he switches words around and changes letters like typing “oak” instead of ‘ok’ or “Yaes” instead of ‘yes’. This could be for comedic reasons or that he just loves to butcher English grammar. He is definitely an unusual person and I love that his language reflects his individuality. He has made his own English. He has become an example of idiomatic language.

Text conversations also use a lot of slang, not just contractions and acronyms. Slang is a type of language that is informal and playful and what’s “in” changes over time. The slang of the past is different than the slang of today, but some slang has carried over into the present. Slang also varies by region and culture which can make it difficult texting to friends from overseas!! ( https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_business-english-for-success/s08-08-slang-and-idioms.html ). Idioms like “pigout”, crack-up, chill out and CHOICE BRO – don’t really translate to German or Italian or Russian (for that matter!!!).

In text conversations everything is more casual than in real time, face to face encounters. We contract sentences for speed of communication (YMMD – you made my day, IRL – in real life). We invent words to make meanings clearer (to us) (eg: YOLO – you only live once) or PLOS (parent looking over shoulder). We type in UPPERCASE to shout and lowercase to seem calm. We send codes (99 – parent on longer watching!), ::poof:: – I’m gone).

Paragraph 4: Further analysis to understand the differences and (maybe) other embedded language features.

Shakespeare changed the English language too. He invented around 1770 words (tho the exact number is heavily debated) that are still in common use today ( http://www.pathguy.com/shakeswo.html ). He contracted words (the dawn as opposed to dawning), joined words (faint-hearted, fancy-free), added prefixes and suffixes (hot-blooded, ill-tempered). He took the idioms of the Elizabethan age and made them cool. Words like “blood-sucking”, “fly-bitten”, “honey-tongued” and phrases like “break the ice” – BTI??, “brevity is the soul of wit” – BITSOW??, “in my minds eye” – IMME??, “love is blind”- LIB?? Who ever questioned that Shakespeare’s changes didn’t improve the English language?? And who says I can’t put those abbreviations into my text to give my text messages Shakespearean flare?

Come what come may (“come what may”) (Macbeth) – CWM, Wild-goose chase (Romeo and Juliet)– WGC, Something wicked this way comes (Macbeth) – SWTWC.

While watching Michael Fassbender in the movie Macbeth recently, I noticed how old English was similar to German, for example “thou hast” sounds like, “du hast” in German and means you have). I started to wonder where the English language came from? Was it the Saxons (a German tribe that invaded England)? Are there words incorporated into English that are from the vikings that invaded too? What about the Romans who raided England? Is there evidence of their language in English too?

Mum says that English is mainly German without the German grammar but I’m not sure that she’s right. English has words from almost every language. A quick google search gave me heaps of examples like deja vu, faux pas, avant garde from french, guerilla, stampede, cockroach from Spanish, pyjama, shampoo, bungalow from Indian, heathen, slaughter, ransack from the Vikings . The mother of all google searches “latin words incorporate into English” and the answer came back 70%!!! Prefixes like alter- in alteration, deter- as in deteriorate, fatu- as in fatuous. Words that I took for granted as being English and now understand that they are inherited from other languages, other times and copied from other peoples’ idioms. It got me thinking…how do some other languages idioms translate into English?… How about this one in German “Ich habe Hummeln in Hintern” (literally I have bumble bees in behind) : in English, I have ants in my pants!! :-0 ( https://leaftranslations.com/ultimate-guide-translating-idioms/ ) or this one; eine Extrawurst verlangen; literally, extra long sausage meaning “special treatment”!!! Hahaha (a text interjection!).

CONCLUSION:

IDEA… Try to write the conclusion using some txt language… use things like SLAP – sounds like a plan, KPC – keeping parents clueless, F2F – face to face, OATUS – on a totally unrelated subject, CWOT – complete waste of time, NIMBY – not in my backyard, B3 – blah blah blah ( https://www.smart-words.org/abbreviations/text.html )

IDEA…Refer back to the hypothesis – ” the way we text says a lot about our personalities” and that “the way we communicate says a lot about our time”. And that together these two things have improved the way we communicate in 2020. And are driving our language into the future!

Here’s a nice quote… “That’s the beautiful thing about language. It is always changing and always developing. When a language stops changing for either an individual or as a whole society, that’s a bad sign for that language. One of the hallmarks of a living, robust language is that it is always changing. That means that the forms, the grammar, the words, the vocabulary, the phrases, the tone, they’re going to keep changing over time in spoken language, in text messaging, in whatever the next version of social media is that we’re going to have. There will be new things to learn, new forms of language to play with, and new ways to express ourselves”. (https://leaftranslations.com/ultimate-guide-translating-idioms/)

The coordinating conjunction is a language feature that is used commonly in everyday conversation. A coordinating conjunction is a word that ties concepts, phrases, clauses, ideas, or if you want to break the rules a bit, a sentence. One such co-ordination conjunction is ‘and’ In the transcript. Person 1: “…let’s just say you like arts and you do lot’s of it outside of school-“
Person 2: “And then you go to math.” The key word here being ‘and’ and the two ideas being linked being maths and art. In this case, most likely Nico is explaining what some would enjoy doing outside and inside school eg: drawing. At the end of his sentence there is a dash (-). This most likely mean person 2 is finishing person 1’s sentence with a contrast between something good and something bad. Person 2 is also acknowledging his understanding and agreement.