Happy December 30th

[kejedo]

         Enrapt (a) readers have credited literary promethean (b) William Shakespeare (1564-1616) with coining more than 3000 words. Old Bill would create new linguistic expressions by adding prefixes or suffixes, by making varied (c) compounds, by using new cognates, or simply by invention. Shakespeare included lustrous (d) word pictures to intrigue and entertain his audiences as they deduced meanings through verbal and physical contexts. He used this long word honorificabilitudinatibus only once in Love's Labours Lost.  

 

    Well rooted in academe (e), Francis Bacon, a contemporary of Shakespeare had been knighted and was prolific.

 

     About 300 years after their deaths, critics (f)  besmirched  (g) Shakespeare's reputation by questioning (h) his authorship. They accused (i)  that the plays were really written by Francis Bacon. Shakespeare did have a theater company, and it's possible that some other authored works performed there could have been dubbed "Shakespearian."

 

     In 1910, Edward Durning-Lawrence attempted to prove that Bacon equals Shakespeare cryptographically. His foregone (j )conclusion: The 'long word' in Love's Labour's Lost "honorificabilitudinitatubus" in an anagram for "hi ludi F. Baconis nati tuite orbi" (Latin for "these plays F. Bacon's offspring preserved for the world.) More importantly (k) it was suggested that Bacon, with a vision of futurity (l,) knew his authorship would not be uncovered until the 1900s.

 

       Do you think that when newly uncommored Lionel Richie, used the phrase 'haven't got a clue' in 1983, he could have foreseen that people would still be using that lackluster (m) figure of speech in the next century? (Not to mention Incubus's deafening (n)  version of aforementioned tune.) In 1970, John Sladek, came up with another anagram of honorificabilitudo which, although a parody, could translate into a spoof that Shakespeare's works were by Ben Johnson.

 

      The word honorificabilitudo wss used long before Shakespeare. It appears in a Latin charter of 1187. According to the Oxford English Dictionary of 1599. it is a medeivil Latin word which denotes (o) 'the state of being able to achieve honors.'   But, here's an interesting, albeit gloomy (p) fact about Francis Bacon: He died while trying to invent frozen food.

 

      In 1626, while driving a cart in a snow storm, and wondering if frozen food could be marketable (q) , Sir Francis got a chicken and spent an extended amount of time trying to stuff it with snow until it froze completely. Nearly frozen all the way through, himself, Bacon was hospitalized and died from exposure(r), as in swan song (figure of speech for final appearance. Maybe this forward (s)  thinker realized that his identity would become unraveled simultaneously with popularity of the TV dinner, as in Swanson (figure of speech for final appearance of conversation.)

 

    Frozen food aside, tell me how you really feel. Whether it's zany (t), fashionable (u,)  quarrelsome (v,)  or tranquil (w), you would not be able to articulate(x) it in quite the same way  were it not for Shakespeare.Or is it Bacon?

 

Key to alphabetized word sources:                 

Troilus and Cressida:   a,s,t             Twelfth Night: d                King HenryIV; n          

Love's Labours Lost;    b,e,f,u          Richard II; i                         Henry VI;p

Titus Andronicus;         c                  Othello; j,l.w                       Coriolanus; x

As You LIke It;     h,m,q,r,v                Hamlet; g,o                         Cymbeline; k

 

Happy Bacon Day          YS

 

 

         

Edited December 30, 2017 by kejedo

[kejedo]

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