Zounds, let thee speaketh like ... Elmer Fudd?
Do not a borrower nor a lender be, it's true, but excuse us today if we borrow an idea from Chicago's officially proclaimed Talk Like Shakespeare Day - itself borrowed from the far more popular, if far less challenging Talk Like a Pirate Day - and posit some other figures worth emulating. Friends, Chicagoans, suburbanites, lend me your ears, eyes and lips to talk like:
The original Mayor Daley
Sample speech: "Da red-light cameras are not dere to create disorder, but to preserve disorder. Dey've been ordered to shoot on sight."
Cub manager Lou Piniella
Sample speech: "Look, you see what time it is, I haven't had a cocktail!"
White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen
Sample speech: "Dees keed, he want to be here, an' we're counteen on heem to bag dee groceries."
Paula Abdul
Sample speech: "Oh my gosh, you were, well, I mean, fantastic, amazing, it's like, well, you know, you are an artist, and the people, overwhelming, trust your gut extinct, I mean, I'm speechless, Simon?"
Simon Cowell
Sample speech: "In a word, atrocious."
Jesse Jackson
Sample speech: "Given the continued cultural inequities, the need for adequate minority representation and the imperative for the black Diaspora to not just survive, but to thrive, it is impracticable at this moment in time for me to say a simple, 'Good morning.'"
Sam Zell, Patty & Selma Bouvier from "The Simpsons"
Sample speech: Just do the same voice for any of their "Talk Like" days.
Brian Urlacher
Sample speech: "Better. No. Sometimes. Maybe."
Elmer Fudd
Sample speech: "Da Woh-wing Stones ah da wold's gweatest wock gwoup."
Astro Jetson
Sample speech: "Rut-roh, Rorge, ret's run."
Marcel Marceau
Sample speech:
Patti and Rod Blagojevich
Sample speech: Admit it, you already know how, perhaps too well, but do yourself a favor and try not to record it on a federal wiretap.
Talk Like Shakespeare Day - a brief primer
As championed by Chicago Shakespeare Theater and proclaimed by Mayor Daley, today is Talk Like Shakespeare Day in Chicago, to mark what is believed to be the 445th anniversary of the immortal bard's birth. The talklikeshakespeare.org Web site has plenty of handy shortcuts, such as adding "eth" to verbs and using "thee" and "thine." It's really just a publicity stunt to promote Shakespeare - as if he needed the help after 400-plus years of dominating world theater.