Bard & Co

The Bard and CoThe Bard & Company is a multi-authored book project from 26, the not-for-profit writers’ group I’ve supported since it’s birth over a decade ago.

Each of the 26 writers involved was asked to explore ways Shakespeare influences modern business life. That’s not quite as obscure as it sounds: I wrote about the surprisingly pertinent parallels between Shakespeare’s love of neologisms (he coined over 2000 words still in regular use) and  the commercial world’s love of buzzwords.

Cyan Books, 2007.

“Say what you like about Shakespeare, he did enjoy his neologising, coining new words with confidence and consummate skill. He changed nouns to verbs (film, champion), verbs to nouns (dawn, scuffle), verbs to adjectives (hush) and adjectives to nouns (accused). He added prefixes and suffixes (eventful, remorseless) and subtracted parts of words to form new ones (impede from impediment).

He gave new meanings to old words (housekeeper was originally the landlord of a theatre) and compounded existing words to create new ones (birthplace, eyeball, cold-blooded, soft-hearted). In short, he played fast and loose with every convention of language and won hands down.”