You might go to one of his plays (because it’s required or you’re getting extra credit), but you’d rather be buried in a toxic waste dump than be caught reading his stuff.

It’s obscure, opaque, convoluted.

And loquacious (look it up).

Words, words, words. That’s what you get with Shakespeare. Lots and lots of words. He goes on and on, sometimes about the smallest point. There’s plenty of action in his plays, but he slows it down with all the words.

With a writing style like that, of course, he would never make it in MC102. He’s flunk, hands down. And particularly in the broadcast writing section. Tell him to write a 30-second broadcast news story, and he would go on for five minutes and never make it to the “cause” part of dramatic unity.

Maybe.

Shakespeare had an extensive vocabulary. In all of his plays and poetry (the ones that we have), there are about 30,000 different words. The well-educated person of today knows about 15,000, and we use far fewer than that.

But the ones we do us, particularly in our everyday speech -- well, many of those originated with Shakespeare. Consider the following expressions:

more in sorrow than in anger

vanished into thin air

refused to budge

played fast and loose

tower of strength

hoodwinked

fair play

cold comfort

too much of a good think

fool’s paradise

bag and baggage

high time

game is up

truth will out

if the truth were known

send him packing

laughing stock

The list could go on and on. (By the way, it comes from English journalist Bernard Levin’s book Enthusiasms.) These expressions -- many of which are now considered clichés -- first appeared in Shakespeare’s work. They weren’t clichés when he wrote them, of course. They were fresh expressions, uses and combinations of words that no one had ever thought of before.

And they were so good that people remembered them and kept using them.

So, when Will Shakespeare, student number ---/--/----, signs up for MC102, we’ll have some work to do. We’ll have to reign him in a bit, tell him he’s got to stick to the 30-second time limit for his broadcast news stories.

But, if we’re smart, we’ll listen very closely to what he has to say and the way he says it. We might learn a thing or two.

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With a writing style like that, of course, he would never make it in MC102. He’s flunk, hands down. And particularly in the broadcast writing section. Tell him to write a 30-second broadcast news story, and he would go on for five minutes and never make it to the “cause” part of dramatic unity.

Maybe.

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