A Modern English Shakespeare Generator

I drive my car and listen to my teenage daughter and her friends in the back. Functionally, I am just a chauffeur, and I don’t think they really pay much attention to my listening ear. But there are a lot of things you can learn by just paying attention to teens; it remains a fascinating peek into a different world.

I marvel at the vast range of evolving slang her generation uses. Of course, that is true for any generation of teen, but I wonder if the social change we are going through accelerates the process, a question for another blog post, I think.

Take ‘Skibidi.’ To my adult ear, it sounds like, and is, a nonsense word born from a viral video about toilets. But that is how words begin. Shakespeare himself gave us ‘skimble-skamble’ to describe a confused way of talking. He understood that sometimes, the sound of a word communicates more than its definition. My daughter’s generation is doing the same thing: playing with the ‘skimble-skamble’ of the digital age.

At the same time, I am re-reading Shakespeare. Each time I return to his work, it is at a different stage of my life. Older now, I marvel at the sheer timing and brilliance of his words, at the sophistication, and his artistry. For pure staying power, nobody beats Shakespeare. The Bard is widely credited with introducing over 1,700 words to the English language. He often didn’t invent these words from thin air; instead, he repurposed them, cut them up, turned nouns into verbs, and reassigned meaning. We still use many of his inventions today.

So, what do modern teens and Shakespeare have in common? A flexibility and adaptability of language that sparks new life into our common tongue. Both Shakespeare and today’s youth are linguistic pioneers, illustrating how humans adapt and incorporate new cultures, new technologies, and arts into words. It is a testament to our wonderfully sophisticated oral skills.

If Shakespeare were alive today, I think he would be playing with language in the same way. Only, instead of Early Modern English, he would be utilizing our modern lexicon. I imagine it would go somewhat like this…

I’ve started with some tech-focused vocabulary in the generator, but might expand, there are many possibilities.

If you are interested in learning more about Renaissance Style Shakespeare Insults or an Early Modern Shakespeare Insults generator, try us out in our other Shakespeare pages.