Linguistic innovation

According to Shakespeare, if you were lonely, you were alone

Rumor has it that William Shakespeare coined over 1,700 new English words or, at least, he was the first to put them in writing. If you have ever heard this fact, it might make you think of sophisticated-sounding terms like sanctimonious, equivocal, or radiance, all invented by the Bard. But many of the words we use in everyday life have Shakespearean origins, no matter how mundane they might seem. Let’s explore Shakespeare’s mark on our daily vocabulary.

First recorded in: A Midsummer Night's Dream

When Shakespeare first used the word ‘bedroom’ (around the 1580s), the common way of referring to a space intended for sleeping was ‘chamber’ or ‘bedchamber’. Why did the bard choose a different word then? He was not referring to what we now understand as a bedroom. In Act 2, Scene 2 of A Midsummer Night's Dream, when Lysander asks Hermia for "bed-room", he is asking to lie next to her in the bed. The change from ‘space in the bed’ to ‘a room intended for sleeping’ occurred a few decades later, and the current use of 'bedroom' was set around the 1610s.

First recorded in: A Midsummer Night's Dream

We commonly use this word to describe the behavior or attitude of someone very confident and bold, and its first recorded use was not that different, though it bore a negative connotation. In Act 3, Scene 1 of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck uses the word "swaggering" to mockingly describe the rustic manners of the actors rehearsing a play. A few years later, Shakespeare used "swaggerer" in Act 2, Scene 4 of Henry IV, Part 2, to describe the noisy, boastful, and brawling Pistol. Nowadays, ‘swagger’ is most of the time used with a positive connotation.

First recorded in: Coriolanus

If Shakespeare ever heard Kelly Clarkson singing "doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone," he would think the verse redundant, because he coined the word ‘lonely’ to mean ‘alone’. In Coriolanus (Act 4, Scene 1), the titular character says "I go alone, like to a lonely dragon, that his fen makes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen". While Coriolanus used the word to compare himself with a solitary or isolated creature, ‘lonely’ evolved to mean ‘sad for lack of company’ in the early 19th century.

First recorded in: Macbeth

While linguists believe that ‘assassine’ was already in use in the 1570s, ‘assassination’ was first recorded in print around 1605 in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. A word of Arabic origin (from hassassin, ‘hashish-user’) that pejoratively described a group of mercenary killers, it had entered English through the Italian assassino. In Macbeth (Act 1, scene 7), the main character, while contemplating killing the king, refers to the potential murder as an ‘assassination’.

First recorded in: Troilus and Cressida

While in modern times we understand fashionable as ‘following the latest trends’, Shakespeare’s use was slightly different. In Act 3, scene 3 of Troilus and Cressida, the character Ulysses describes time as "a fashionable host", using the term to mean ‘popular’. While its meaning has changed slightly since then, the association with something popular remains.

First recorded in: Venus and Adonis

Was Shakespeare the first to record this word? Yes and no. In 1575, a scholar named William Patten had recorded the term ‘eye ball’, but Shakespeare was the first to use it as a single word in the 1593 poem Venus and Adonis, "Look in mine eyeballs, there thy beauty lies". How did people refer to the eyeball before that? They simply called it the ‘eye’.

First recorded in: Julius Caesar

Historians are certain about this one: the word ‘generous’ was not coined by Shakespeare, but he was responsible for making it popular and cementing its meaning as ‘freely giving’. From the Latin generosus (‘of noble birth’, ‘honorable’), the term had entered English through French with that original meaning. Shakespeare had used it as ‘honorable’ or ‘high ranking’ in Love's Labour's Lost (c. 1594), but he later used it in 1599's Julius Caesar (Act 2, scene 3) to describe the unselfishness and altruism of Caesar, who had made provisions for every Roman citizen in his will.

First recorded in: The Taming of the Shrew

Before Shakespeare’s time, English people certainly undressed, but they used words like unclothe, strip, or the Old English unscrydan to describe the action. The French dresser (´to arrange’, ‘put in order’) entered English in the 14th century, and shifted from general to personal order in the following century, eventually being used solely for clothes. Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew (c. 1590) contains the first written record of the opposite verb, ‘to undress’, in its prologue: "Madam, undress you, and come now to bed."

First recorded in: Titus Andronicus

Although ‘vary’ (from the Latin variare, ‘to change or make different’) was already in use during the 1500s, Shakespeare is widely considered the first to record its adjectival form with the meaning ‘something that contains many different things’. In 1591’s Titus Andronicus (Act 3, scene 1), the character Marcus compares the voice of his now-mute niece Lavinia with a bird that sang "sweet varied notes".

First recorded in: Love’s Labour’s Lost

The Greek kritikos, meaning ‘able to judge’, was already used in English before Shakespeare’s time, but it referred to skilled judges or literary correctors. In Act 3, scene 1, of Love’s Labour’s Lost, Berowne, initially cynical about love but having fallen for Rosalind, describes his former self as "A critic, nay, a nightwatch constable", making this the first recorded use of the word to mean someone who points out flaws or looks upon others with contempt.

WEATHER REPORT

10 Thunderous Facts About Storms and Weather Patterns

Image: Nikolas Noonan

While talking about the weather might have bad press, no one can resist the awe-inspiring allure of a powerful storm or a display of lightning against a pitch-black sky. And even if this raw demonstration of the power of nature frightens you - or you just find it boring, the myriad of subtle intricacies of atmospheric phenomena are bound to catch your eye.

Here are 10 curious facts about storms and weather phenomena to quench your sense of wonder, and - hopefully - leave you a bit more appreciative of nature's grandeur.

Image: Johannes Plenio

Each year, Earth experiences about 1.4 billion lightning strikes. These bolts of electricity can reach temperatures of up to 30,000 Kelvin (53,540 degrees Fahrenheit), hotter than the surface of the sun. This violent phenomenon occurs when electrical imbalances build up within clouds or between clouds and the ground. The thunder that follows a lightning bolt is caused by the rapid expansion of air around it, and it can travel from 15 to 30 miles from the point where the strike occurred. In fact, if you count the number of seconds between the flash of lightning and its sound, and divide it by 5, you can approximate the distance in miles to the source of the lightning. Just make sure you are in a safe place while counting!

Image: NOAA

Tornado Alley, a loosely defined region in the central United States, sees more tornadoes than any other place on Earth. This area, stretching from Texas to South Dakota, experiences frequent tornado activity due to the collision of warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico and cold, dry air from Canada. The combination of these air masses, along with the presence of the Rocky Mountains to the west, creates an environment ripe for the formation of these formidable wind vortexes. If you happen to live in an area prone to tornadoes, just don’t try to emulate Dorothy, or you might end up much farther away than the Land of Oz.

Image: NASA

Did you know that hurricanes are given names to help with communication and awareness? The use of names for hurricanes dates back to the 1950s and helps to avoid confusion when multiple storms are active simultaneously, as names are much easier to remember than numbers or technical terms. The World Meteorological Organization generates lists of names that are rotated every six years, except for particularly destructive storms, whose names are retired forever.

Image: Matthieu Joannon

Haboobs are massive dust storms that occur in arid regions, such as the Sahara Desert and the southwestern United States. These towering walls of dust can reach heights of 4,921 feet and travel at speeds of up to 60 mph, engulfing everything in their path. Haboobs typically form when cold downdrafts from thunderstorms hit the ground and kick up loose, dry soil and sand. These intense dust storms can reduce visibility to near-zero levels, posing serious dangers to motorists and even disrupting air travel.

Image: John Middelkoop

The Fujita Scale, developed by Dr. Ted Fujita in 1971, measures the intensity of tornadoes based on the damage they cause to human-built structures and vegetation. The scale ranges from F0 (light damage) to F5 (incredible damage), with wind speeds exceeding 300 mph for the most severe tornadoes. In recent years, the original scale has been replaced by the Enhanced Fujita Scale (EF-Scale), which incorporates modern engineering and construction standards to assess tornado damage more accurately.

Image: Noah Silliman

Throughout history, people have relied on old sayings and common knowledge to predict the weather. From "red sky at night, sailor's delight" to "ring around the moon means rain real soon," these sayings often contain kernels of truth based on observable atmospheric patterns. Even when most are - more likely than not - not scientifically accurate, they prove that humanity has always been intrinsically connected to weather patterns.

Image: Ryan Arnst

Atmospheric rivers are narrow corridors of concentrated moisture in the atmosphere that can transport vast amounts of water vapor across long distances. This phenomenon plays a crucial role in global weather patterns and can lead to heavy rainfall and flooding whenever they make landfall. Scientists believe that changes in global temperatures and atmospheric humidity will increase the intensity and frequency of weather phenomena caused by atmospheric rivers in the next few years.

Image: JOSHUA COLEMAN

The Coriolis Effect is a phenomenon caused by Earth's rotation, which deflects moving objects, including air and water, to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere. This effect influences the direction of winds and ocean currents, shaping global weather patterns. For this reason, large currents of air and powerful weather events like cyclones display either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction of motion depending on their position in the globe.

Image: Chris Gallagher

El Niño and La Niña are opposite phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, which refers to fluctuations in sea surface temperatures and atmospheric pressure in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. These large weather patterns can directly influence the climate around the globe, affecting precipitation, temperatures, and storm activity. While El Niño events are marked by an anomalous warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific, in contrast, La Niña events are characterized by cooler-than-average temperatures.

Image: Wolfgang Hasselmann

Hailstorms occur when strong updrafts in thunderstorms carry raindrops into colder regions of the atmosphere, where they freeze and accumulate layers of ice before falling to the ground. The size of hailstones can vary widely, ranging from pea-sized pellets to golf ball-sized or larger projectiles capable of causing significant damage to property, crops, and vehicles. The largest hailstone ever recorded fell on the town of Vivian, South Dakota, during an extraordinary hailstorm, and it was larger than a bowling ball, measuring 7.87 inches in diameter and weighing almost 2 pounds!