What is Digg?82 Comments
- evilTak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+36"Shakespeare uses a linguistic technique known as functional shift that involves, for example using a noun to serve as a verb."
"I like to verb words." - aahpandasrun, on 10/12/2007, -18/+50Because the language is so dated it takes a whole lot of your brain to figure out what the hell he's saying.
- jabab, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22Urge to kill...rising.
- Lexrst, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19To quote Calvin (friend of Hobbes): "Verbing weirds words!"
- Philodox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19If you kill anyone make sure to eat their heart; to gain their courage. Their rich, tasty courage.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19There is significant evidence that suggests that Shakespeare was a gay cannibal from the future. Unfortunately, this evidence lies on the deep web, so I am unable to find it using today's search technology.
- digitalsin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19Yeah, it's called REM.
- armbar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15Sounds like some managers I know...maybe they're just Shakespeare fans?
"Yeah, we need to timeline out this project"
Ok, big guy. - mikesbaker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16yes murder, rape, revenge, greed, jealousy, hate, anti-antisemitism, love, sword fights, brawls just to mention a few themes from his body of word are so boring. Thanks for showing us that you have never read Shakespeare.
- dsendecki, on 10/12/2007, -4/+18I think you are missing the point, though. There's a distinction to be made between Elizabetean lanugage (what you hold as dated) and Shakespearean language, which uses what is here termed "functional shift".
Sure you have to decode both—but to be honest, Elizabethan language is pretty much exactly the same as modern english. - dsendecki, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15Shakespeare clears the sinuses?
- pbaehr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I've heard that "The Two Gentleman of Verona" was originally a recipe.
- Lexrst, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Mmmmmmmmmm.... courage.
- Kale, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@rayishu: Apparently wreaks havok on your grammar and capitalization.
:D - PleaseJustDie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@jacob
Its not a flaw. He has an opinion but its not valid because he doesn't back it up in any way shape or form. If he wants people to take his post seriously then "Shakespeare is BORING" needs to be fleshed out a bit more as to WHY the thinks its boring. As it is right now it looks like he just said that to get buried and see what kind of flame thread he can get started here. - noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"i program what does that do to my brain?"
Makes it convulse and writhe in continuous agony.... at least until you figure out your compiler was choking on a comma.
@Kale
Pretty strong talk coming from a vegetable.
See what I did there, multiple meanings based on context, programmers are grammar-l33t too. - pureliquidhw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@ jacob
Holy Run-on Sentence! - noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8It's funny to me when they come up with all these techniques after the fact, it's also one of the things that always bothered me in English classes. Shakespeare didn't use the "functional shift" technique because no one studied literature that way until more recently, for all we know, Shakespeare, really, could have just had a lousy grasp of verbs, or liked coming up new phrases. Just saying horsing around doesn't make any of us a modern day master of functional shift.
Not sure why I'm ranting, this just ranks right up there with analysing every book in a class for symbolism that the author probably never intented to be read into his work.
Insteresting findings anyway. - noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I suppose you know seeing as... wait, who are you? Why should I care?
- dsendecki, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Shakespeare wrote plays, not books. And the majority of movies you see today are based off of many of the tropes and plots he employed.
- brandmanjr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Though the report is interesting, the fact is Shakespeare was meant to be HEARD and not read. Not only does he tells us this himself in Hamlet (the advice to the players speech) It's a fact backed up by history. The source material was gathered by the prompt scripts and the memory of the actors of his time. Plus his use of alliteration, onomatopoeia, and punctuation, as well as many other sonic methods drives the point home even further. His plays are much, much easier to understand watching and HEARING them than reading them. Not only was he a master of the language, but a master of the ear.
- mikesbaker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5yes iambic pentameter is so easy to write in that I sure it was just accidental because Shakespeare had a bad grasp of words.
- PsychePsyche, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8While Shakespeare is a good read, it is truly meant to be viewed as a play.
- orbit1979, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Then eat thy ***** bitch, and goeth somewhere thither.
- armbar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Only boring people get bored. Sorry about your predicament.
- Derrelicte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Ironically enough, Shakespeare, at his time, wrote in such a way that the lowest common denominator could easily understand what was going on in his plays.
A majority of the people that attended a Shakespearian play back in ye days of olde were more illiterate than not. Shakespeare wrote to cater to this fact. Aural patterns set up by iambic pentameter and tonal inflections of the speaker were supposed to draw in the play viewer. In that sense, Shakespeare's writings are pretty intelligent. - noahhoward, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You're missing my concept, did Shakespeare refer to it as Iambic Pentameter, and strive to conform to that, or was he just a good writer who liked to write in a pleasing pattern?
- mikesbaker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I am amazed if 1 in 100 students today are not dumb as a box of rocks. Maybe thats why they don't like those play. As for derivative material... isn't just about every TV show and Movie that comes out these days ripped off of one of his works. You can argue that there is no such this as an original work because you can always go back a little further and see a piece with the same thing. A better explanation of that is that the themes presented in the plays are universally relevant to any person in any time. Thats why we teach it in school. And what should we teach instead? How to feel good about yourself even though you cannot wrap you mind around Shakespeare?
- teunit48, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I know, I know. I should be reading Shakespeare, not Digg.
- evilTak, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Probably the same effect as a strong antihistamine.
- dsendecki, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4@Philodox
+digg for Futurama reference - Acadian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Good point--never really thought of it like that, but it's true. Though it's probably also worth mentioning that by merely watching it, while the plot and storyline is easier to follow, you often miss out on some of the better aspects of his writing.
- mikesbaker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@Phyltre
That wasn't a question and that wasn't my point. - PleaseJustDie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2And digg strikes again, surprised it took this long for someone to bring up politics...
- Grym11, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Can we go one story without some jackass bashing Bush?
I read Shakespeare and the like to get AWAY from the ***** up things of the world. - dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"Not sure why I'm ranting, this just ranks right up there with analysing every book in a class for symbolism that the author probably never intented to be read into his work."
If a good author intends to convey meaning and theme in his book, it is presumed that every word he says in the book is very carefully selected among a bank of synonyms, because the word has a specific duty: to not mislead the reader who is trying to understand the underlying meaning of the book. If the author haphazardly selects his words, he is bound to give the reader conflicting images and themes, and the book will feel convoluted and ungrounded. Take a literature class; it'll really open your eyes to writing *and* reading alike.
(And, when I say "good author" I'm not talking about John Grisham or Dean Koontz or Stephen King. I'm talking about classic literary writers like Faulkner, Dickens and Steinbeck.) - mercurysquad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Reading Shakespeare has *dramatic* effect on human brain"
LOL. Good title. - championchap, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not boring exactly, i think its just that we've all heard the same stories over and over again in one form or another that we have become bored by them.
There was a lot of good stuff in there, but the language makes them harder to deal with.
One of a few things that really pisses me off though, is that everyone holds this man in such high regard. Yet he couldn't even spell his own name.
When he would sigh a play off at the end, the spelling of his name was often different to how it appeared on others. - yahoofrom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Shakespearing has dramatic effect on human brain.
- crash128, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2If Shakes created a game (like Monopoly), it would be called a bard game.
Footnotes, get your footnotes here. One dollar. Map of the stars homes, one dollar.
aarrtt - this is my functional shift for the day - 3d text, right before your eyes.
Note to self - get a life. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4The verbed nouns, they do nothing!
- JAVandiver, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@ tubalcane
Shakespeare's works were written to be understood by the masses. The masses in Elizabethan England. Most of whom were illiterate. Are you saying that you have less ability to comprehend the English language than an illiterate peasant? If so, please do us a favor and do not reproduce. - Phil246, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@rayishu, probably makes you think more logically.
Logic is an essential component in programming, it stands to reason that part of your brain would be improved by it - krakkinem, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2So that's what the teacher meant by telling us that we were "only cheating ourselves" by reading the cliffnotes instead of the actual plays!
The only Shakespeare play that I really loved was Hamlet, and that was only after I watched the Kenneth Branagh film version with Kate Winslet as Ophelia. Maybe I'm just an idiot, but reading the actual plays took a very long time. I'd read one line, not get it, read it again, still not get it, read it again, then sort of get it and finally move on only to be more confused by the next line.
Still, Shakespeare is some good stuff. - rhinopig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@kale
dependsOnWhatConventionsYouUse;
Also, I'd imagine programmers use lowercase 'i's more often than other mis capitalizations. Nobody ever writes:
for( I=0; I <r Length; I++)
(or would that be: for( I=0; I $ltr Length; Me++) ? :) - bobcolt, on 04/25/2009, -0/+1No Wonder I am getting smarter after reading this shakespeare quotes:
http://quotesbyauthors.blogspot.com/2009/04/willia ... - shogusumi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2How should Shakespeare be taught, then?
- mercurysquad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1But unfortunately the parts of his plays which catered to "groundlings" didn't make much sense to normal audience. Anyone remember the Launcelot Gobbo nonsense??
- skankyBacon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Whether he *called* it iambic pentameter or functional shifting or not doesn't change the fact that he used it. Doesn't even matter if he understood what he was doing at the time (though he most likely did).
- takehiro12, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2So this is why I always got off reading or hearing Shakespeare. I thought there was something wrong with me.
-
Show 51 - 82 of 82 discussions
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is