Spell it correct!

We probably don’t spell Shakespeare’s name correctly — but, then again, neither did he.

Sources from William Shakespeare’s lifetime spell his last name in more than 80 different ways, ranging from “Shappere” to “Shaxberd.” In the handful of signatures that have survived, the Bard never spelled his own name “William Shakespeare,” using variations or abbreviations such as “Willm Shakp,” “Willm Shakspere” and “William Shakspeare” instead. However it’s spelled, Shakespeare is thought to derive from the Old English words “schakken” (“to brandish”) and “speer” (“spear”), and probably referred to a confrontational or argumentative person.

Bird references

William Shakespeare’s works contain more than 600 references to various types of birds, from swans and doves to sparrows and turkeys. The starling — a lustrous songbird with a gift for mimicry, native to Europe and western Asia — makes just one appearance, in Henry IV, Part 1. In 1890, an American “bardolator” named Eugene Schiffelin decided to import every kind of bird mentioned in Shakespeare’s oeuvre but absent from the US. As part of this project, he released two flocks of 60 starlings in New York’s Central Park. One hundred twenty years later, the highly adaptable species has taken over the skies, becoming invasive and driving some native birds to the brink of extinction.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 13th, 2015