The History of English Podcast · Kevin Stroud

Episode 179: Defining Moments

·1 hr 26 min·5 clips

Maria’s forged letter gives Malvolio the line, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

1. The History of English Podcast episode 179, “Defining Moments,” follows several early-1600s events that shaped English history and English usage. 2. The host, who runs The History of English Podcast, links Shakespeare, James I, the Dutch East India Company, and the first dictionary of English to the years 1602–1605. 3. The episode asks what a “defining moment” means when a political event, a trade company, or a word change alters the future of English. 4. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night appears in the first recorded reference from February 2, 1602, at Middle Temple Hall in London. 5. John Manningham’s diary, the Middle Temple Hall setting, and the title Twelfth Night or What You Will anchor the play in the Inns of Court. 6. The host uses Orsino’s line “If music be the food of love, play on” to introduce the play’s love triangle. 7. Viola survives a shipwreck, disguises herself as a man, and enters the Duke’s service while still loving the Duke. 8. Olivia falls for the disguised Viola, which creates the triangle of Olivia, Viola, and Orsino. 9. Maria’s prank on Malvolio includes a forged letter, yellow stockings, and the line “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” 10. The episode uses Malvolio’s humiliation to show Shakespeare’s satire of Puritans, who criticized theaters and later helped close them in the 1600s. 11. Maria’s reply “a horse of that color” is identified as the earliest known use of that phrase. 12. The host explains that thou, thee, and thy were used for lower status or intimate address, while you was the formal form. 13. Christopher Cooper’s 1685 Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae is cited for the statement that ordinary speech said “you for thou, thee, and ye.” 14. The episode argues that singular you spread because speakers wanted to avoid social mistakes and class offense. 15. The loss of singular-plural distinction in you led to later plural forms such as y’all, yous, and you-uns. 16. The host distinguishes Elizabethan you all from modern Southern y’all and notes that Shakespeare already uses you all in Antony’s funeral speech in Julius Caesar. 17. The tone is chronological and explanatory, with long digressions into pronoun history, early modern language change, and historical context. 18. The format mixes literary quotation, etymology, and historical narration, and the pacing stays conversational rather than dramatic. 19. Listeners interested in Shakespeare, pronouns, and early 1600s history would likely enjoy it. 20. Listeners seeking a short, purely literary recap of Twelfth Night might skip it.

As heard by us

A brisk, language-first survey of the early 1600s and the forces that fixed English in print.

Episode 179 offers a steady walk through a few early-1600s turning points that shaped English history and the history of English itself. It moves from the end of the Elizabethan era to James I, then into the path toward a new Bible translation, the Gunpowder Plot, and, most…

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Play this if you want a quick tour of early 1600s turning points in English history.

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