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Overuse of the word “the” in “Macbeth”

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Re: Overuse of the word “the” in “Macbeth”

#21

Post by dylan604 »

gerdesj wrote: post #19
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`` and '' is just unparsed markup.

So where do the top right to bottom left ticks come from? They are not on my keyboard. Obviously I can trivially recreate any character with some effort but those left slanting ticks are not on many keyboards.

I blame Microsoft, as it was their software where I was first introduced to "smart" quotes using the extending characters/glyphs of fonts. I can also tell when importing someone's data that was copy/pasted from an Office type program with its auto"correcting" to smart typography.

Re: Overuse of the word “the” in “Macbeth”

#22

Post by dylan604 »

allturtles wrote: post #4

I think this is just the way Shakespeare wrote, not anything specific to Macbeth's 'creepiness.' I was able to quickly find a similar example in Julius Caesar: "Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again; but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by;" Or Much Ado About Nothing: "I have the toothache." It is not surpr…

I've heard the phrase "I've got the cancer". As if there's only one cancer to get, and everyone will know of it.

Then again, the English say "I'm going to hospital" where an American would say "I'm going to the hospital", so maybe the Bard used up all of the (how do you pluralize the??) so that the English use it less? At least the TFA author might theorize as such.

Re: Overuse of the word “the” in “Macbeth”

#24

Post by rmccue »

gerdesj wrote: post #19
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`` and '' is just unparsed markup.

So where do the top right to bottom left ticks come from? They are not on my keyboard. Obviously I can trivially recreate any character with some effort but those left slanting ticks are not on many keyboards.

The use of `` and '' comes from the typewriter days. You’ll see it particularly with professional authors who have been writing for print since then.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_accent#As_surrogate_of_a...

US QWERTY keyboards like the author is almost certainly using have the backtick above the Tab key, shared with ~, and it’s commonly used in programming.

Re: Overuse of the word “the” in “Macbeth”

#25

Post by gerdesj »

shakna wrote: post #20
gerdesj wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So where do the top right to bottom left ticks come from? They are not on my keyboard. Obviously I can trivially recreate any character with some effort but those left slanting ticks are not on many keyboards.

The backtick? That's generally the non-shift character on the "tilde key", generally right under the escape key. It's on most physical keyboards.

Where do I find these things: “”

I use a en_GB keyboard and I have a very broad mind 8) I think I know where 66 and 99 come from.

Re: Overuse of the word “the” in “Macbeth”

#27

Post by jwmhjwmh »

allturtles wrote: post #4

I think this is just the way Shakespeare wrote, not anything specific to Macbeth's 'creepiness.' I was able to quickly find a similar example in Julius Caesar: "Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again; but, to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by;" Or Much Ado About Nothing: "I have the toothache." It is not surpr…

Similar to the second quote, English speakers nowadays (at least where I live) say things like "I have the flu." In this phrase, I believe "the flu" refers to the ailment in general as opposed to what affects the speaker in particular. Maybe this is also the case with your second quote?

Re: Overuse of the word “the” in “Macbeth”

#29

Post by Zanni »

SeanLuke wrote: post #26

Did they bother analyzing the rest of the Shakespeare canon to see how often "the" appeared? The article doesn't say.

Yeah, that's the chart in the middle of the article of the log likelihood of each word. The higher that score, the more a word is used in Macbeth relative to the rest of his plays. However ... the author blips right over the fact that "our" and "she"--two very common words--both have a higher log likelihood than "the".
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