Shakespeare's Non-Standard English: A Dictionary of his Informal Language

Most scholarly attention on Shakespeare's vocabulary has been directed towards his enrichment of the language through borrowing words from other languages. But the bulk of Shakespeare's output consists of plays and to make these appear lifelike he needed to employ a colloquial and informal style. Apart from his bawdy language, this aspect of his work has to date been largely ignored. Here for the first time is a dictionary that includes all manner of non-standard English used by Shakespeare. The Dictionary lists the types of word which constitute informal language - whether used by all speakers or less educated ones. As with other books in this series the words are grouped either by semantic identity, such as words for 'head', or by some linguistic feature such as 'discourse markers'. A list of abbreviations, select bibliography and all the expected indices are included.