Six everyday phrases popularised by Shakespeare (and why they matter for 11+ English)

Shakespeare wrote between roughly 1590 and 1613, and the Oxford English Dictionary credits him with the first recorded use of more than 1,700 words, alongside many phrases that have stuck in the language ever since. Some of those entered everyday English so thoroughly that we don't notice them now: We use them without thinking, in conversations that have nothing to do with the theatre.

That's worth pointing out to a child preparing for the 11+, partly because it makes Shakespeare feel less remote, and partly because it's exactly the kind of "vocabulary in context" thinking that comprehension papers reward. Spotting where a phrase comes from, and what it originally meant, is a small skill that opens up bigger ones.

The Taming of the Shrew, Act 1 Scene 2. The character Tranio says: "And if you break the ice, and do this feat..." In Shakespeare's line the phrase still carries the older sense of taking the first difficult step in a tough task (here, winning over the difficult Katherine), rather than the modern social meaning we use at parties.

The phrase predates Shakespeare. Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch already has "to be the first to break the Ice of the Enterprize", with earlier sixteenth-century uses around too, so Shakespeare didn't coin it. The modern sense of easing an awkward social situation comes later: the OED cites Samuel Jackson Pratt's Gleanings Through Wales, Holland and Westphalia (1795) for the specifically modern social meaning, although Samuel Butler's Hudibras (1664) contains an earlier use approaching that social sense. The original image is literal: A ship breaking through frozen water so others can follow behind. It's a useful example for children of how a concrete image becomes a figure of speech, and how the meaning can drift centuries later.

The Tempest, Act 5 Scene 1. Alonso asks the drunken Trinculo: "How camest thou in this pickle?" Shakespeare's line leans on the older sense of being "pickled" (drunk, preserved in brine), with the meaning we use today (a difficult situation) running underneath. Over time we've kept the predicament sense and quietly dropped the drunken one.

The OED lists an earlier use by John Heywood in 1562, but flags that the sense there is unclear (Heywood's "pickell" may mean something more like "consummate" than "predicament"). The clean modern meaning of a plight is more securely dated to the mid-17th century, with Samuel Pepys's 1660 diary entry an often-cited example. A nice point of comparison for children: even very famous writers are often picking up phrases that were already in circulation, but the dating of word senses isn't always tidy.

Henry V, Act 4 Scene 1. Pistol describes the disguised king as "The king's a bawcock, and a heart of gold, a lad of life, an imp of fame, of parents good, of fist most valiant. I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string I love the lovely bully." Shakespeare uses the phrase as we still do, to describe someone kind beneath whatever rough exterior they show the world.

Worth flagging that "heart of gold" was already in use earlier in the 1500s, so Shakespeare didn't coin it from scratch; he gave it one of its most memorable outings and helped it stick. It's also a neat example of metaphor for younger readers. Gold is precious, lasting, and warm. Putting it inside a chest cavity gives us a vivid shorthand for character that doesn't need explaining.

Othello, Act 3 Scene 3. Iago, who is poisoning Othello's mind with suspicion, warns him: "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on." The image personifies jealousy as a creature that consumes the person it lives in.

The colour green has a long association with envy and sickness in English literature, going back further than Shakespeare. But the phrase "green-eyed monster" is his, and it's one of the most enduring metaphors he ever wrote. Children who notice this kind of personification in a comprehension passage have something to write about straight away.

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 4. Mercutio teases Romeo: "Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done." Here's where the etymology gets interesting. In Shakespeare's day, a "wild-goose chase" was the name of a kind of horse race, where the lead rider set an erratic course that the others had to follow. It didn't yet mean a futile pursuit.

The meaning shifted later, probably because people who didn't know about the horse race assumed it referred to chasing actual geese (which would, in fairness, be pointless). It's a good example for older 11+ candidates of how language drifts: A phrase can survive into modern English while its meaning quietly changes underneath it.

Othello, Act 3 Scene 3 again. After Iago has spun him a fake story about Desdemona, Othello says: "But this denoted a foregone conclusion." In Shakespeare it means a decision already made or an act already committed. We use it slightly differently now, to mean an outcome that's obvious before it happens ("the result was a foregone conclusion").

This is another example of meaning drift, but a gentler one than "wild-goose chase". The two meanings overlap enough that the phrase feels at home in both contexts. For children, it's worth flagging that even short phrases carry history with them.

Three reasons, none of them about Shakespeare himself.

First, comprehension papers test vocabulary in context, and that includes idioms. A child who's met phrases like "in a pickle" or "the green-eyed monster" in a poem or extract will read more confidently than one who's stuck working out what the words literally say.

Second, the kind of metaphor and personification Shakespeare uses (jealousy as a monster, kindness as gold) maps directly onto the techniques 11+ papers ask children to identify. Spotting figurative language gets easier the more examples a child has seen used in the wild.

Third, this kind of small linguistic curiosity is a habit, and it transfers. A child who notices that "break the ice" used to mean breaking actual ice is doing the same thinking they'd use to work out why a writer chose "tugged" over "pulled". That habit pays off across the whole comprehension paper, not just on questions about old language.

You don't need to set this up as a lesson. The most useful version of this is in conversation: When one of these phrases comes up in a book, a film, or someone's speech, point out where it came from. Children remember etymology much better when it arrives by accident than when they're tested on it.

If you want a small structured activity, try this: Pick one phrase a week, write it on a Post-it, and put it on the fridge. Talk about what it means now, what it might have meant originally, and where else your child has heard it. Six weeks of this and they've quietly absorbed half a dozen idioms with their full story attached, which is exactly the kind of vocabulary depth 11+ comprehension rewards.

It's also worth pointing out that none of this is unique to Shakespeare. Lewis Carroll gave us "chortle". Charles Dickens popularised the figurative use of "red tape" for bureaucracy (the phrase itself was already in use a century before him). J.M. Barrie popularised "Wendy" as a girl's name through Peter Pan (a name that existed rarely before but only became common after the book). Once children notice that writers shape the language they use every day, they tend to start spotting it everywhere they look.