Word: soliloquys
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...that is left is to witness the two thieves' metamorphosis, of course, never overstated. After Neara and Snow regain their long-lost youthful courage by plotting the theft, Snow turns to Harriet one day in their bookshop and compliments her on her dress. No emotional plea, or philosophic soliloquy. Just a couple of kind words and a coy blush from Harriet...
...Cambridge School Committee meeting two weeks ago, one committee member gave a 10-minute soliloquy on poor children, working class families, and disadvantaged schools during a two- hour debate on an AIDS policy for the Cambridge schools...
...rest of the play is spent exhausting every funny situation that could possibly arise from such circumstances. The crux of the comedy comes when George is left on stage for what is supposed to be a soliloquy of Shakespeare from Macbeth to a Midsummer Night's Dream. he resorts to reciting the pledge allegiance and the act of contrition. Like the rest of the play, the speech is funny for a while, but rapidly becomes tiresome. By the end of the evening, George's nightmare has become the audience's own bad dream...
Then there are the words that were current in 16th century England but are now familiar only to scholars. In his "To be or not to be" soliloquy, Hamlet asks himself why he should bear fardels. We would now say burdens and so, probably, would Shakespeare. Thus, in a Hamlet for 1984, "Who would fardels bear?" becomes "Who would burdens bear?" See? Anybody who has studied Elizabethan English, who has lots of time to waste and possesses a Falstaff-size ego can do it. Exit anybody. Enter A.L. Rowse, who proclaims himself "the world's leading authority on Shakespeare...
Other changes are inconsistent. In the "To be or not to be" soliloquy, fardels is replaced, but the word bodkin remains. Why? "I expect all the ladies to know what a bodkin is," says Rowse in the general introduction to his edition. ("A long pin, or skewer," according to Rowse; "a short pointed weapon" like a dagger, according to the appropriate definition in the Oxford English Dictionary...