Methinks vs. I Think

Methinks vs. I Think Methinks vs. I Think Methinks vs. I Think By Maeve Maddox An archaic verb form that survives in modern speech, thanks to its presence in a well-known quotation from Hamlet, is methinks. A Google search for â€Å"methinks† brings up more than five million hits. The quotation appears in the â€Å"mousetrap scene† in Hamlet. Traveling actors are performing a play written to Hamlet’s specifications. He wants to dramatize his father’s murder and produce a guilty reaction in his stepfather. The Player Queen gives a highly charged speech about her feelings for her husband, swearing that, should he die, she will never remarry. Hamlet asks his mother, â€Å"How do you like the play?† Uncomfortable with the speech because of her own remarriage, Hamlet’s mother replies, â€Å"The lady protests too much, methinks.† Modern speakers frequently misquote the line as, â€Å"Methinks the lady doth protest too much† and seem to believe it means something like, â€Å"I think the person is trying to hide something by denying it so strongly.† Methinks is not the equivalent of â€Å"I think.† The thinks in methinks comes from the Old English verb thyncan: â€Å"to seem† or â€Å"to appear.† The think in â€Å"I think I’ll drive to Tulsa this weekend† comes from Old English thencan: â€Å"to think.† Methinks means â€Å"It seems to me.† Originally, it was spelled as two words. The me is an indirect object: â€Å"It seems to me.† Now it is spelled as one word, although some modern speakers, imagining that it means, â€Å"I think† spell it as two words. Note: Using methinks as if it meant, â€Å"I think† equates to such baby talk as â€Å"Me wants a cookie.† The past tense of methinks is methought: Methought I heard a voice cry, â€Å"Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep.† –Macbeth, Act II, scene ii. Another misunderstood word in the Hamlet quotation is protest. Modern speakers interpret it to mean, â€Å"to object,† but Gertrude means it in the sense of â€Å"to promise.† She thinks the Player Queen is overdoing her promise never to remarry should her husband die: Player Queen: Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, If once I be a widow, ever I be a wife! Paraphrase: May nothing but trouble hound my steps for the rest of my life if I ever remarry after my husband’s death. Here are a few examples of how methinks is being used on the Web: Me thinks I have the perfect frame for it. Me thinks  Im in need of some serious psychiatric help. Me thinks  you drank a wee bit too much one night. Methinks  Jay Leno Is a Closet Conservative/Libertarian. Methinks ESPN’s Chris Broussard WANTS to get fired. Because so many speakers are already confused about the proper way to use the pronouns me and I, it may be a good idea to retire the use of methinks–at least at the beginning of a sentence. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Misused Words category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:10 Grammar Mistakes You Should AvoidWriting the Century10 Humorous, Derisive, or Slang Synonyms for â€Å"Leader† or â€Å"Official†

Factoid and Tabloid

Factoid and Tabloid Factoid and Tabloid Factoid and Tabloid By Maeve Maddox My use of the word factoid in the sense of â€Å"a little fact† in a recent post earned me considerable disapproval from my readers. Here are just two examples: Really, Maeve, â€Å"FACTOID?!?† So you mean to say you are lying to us? You mean to say those are not facts, but, like asteroids or humanoids, merely things that have the APPEARANCE of them?   its like seeing Superman jaywalk. I wanted to cry Say it aint so, Maeve! I apologized in the comments for using factoid in this way. I did not try to justify my use by referring to this secondary definition in Merriam-Webster: â€Å"a briefly stated and usually trivial fact.† As has been stated numerous times on this site, by both writers and readers, â€Å"But, it’s in the Dictionary!† is no justification for using a word irresponsibly. Writer Norman Mailer coined the term factoid by adding the suffix -oid to fact. The suffix -oid is used chiefly in science to form nouns meaning â€Å"something having the form or appearance of; something related or allied in structure, but not identical.† A factoid, therefore, resembles a fact but is not to be relied upon as being completely factual. Bottom line, speakers who care about maintaining useful distinctions will agree with the astute blogger who wrote this in 2010: It seems to me to be the waste of a good word to use  factoid  with the sense of â€Å"brief factual item† when it provides such a useful word for the half-truths and opinions that pass for â€Å"facts† in much of the media. We already have the word  trivia  for â€Å"a trivial, or little-known fact.† Actually, that’s probably not the bottom line. Defend the â€Å"true† meaning of factoid as we might, the word’s meaning has begun to evolve. Some words, despite efforts to make them mean only one thing, take on a life of their own–even in the speech of those who initially resist the change. The more one hears a word used with new meanings, the easier it is to forget the meaning it started with. The word tabloid is a case in point. Like factoid, the word tabloid is a coinage. It was trademarked in 1884 as a brand name for a small, flat, compressed piece of a medicinal substance: a medicine tablet. In 1903, the manufacturers brought suit against druggists who were calling their own tablets â€Å"tabloids.† The company not only lost their suit, the defendants succeeded in reversing the word’s trademark status. Here’s the ruling: The word Tabloid has become so well-knownin consequence of the use of it by the Plaintiff firm in connection with their compressed drugs that I think it has acquired a secondary sense in which it has been used and may legitimately be used so long as it does not interfere with their trade rights. I think the word has been so applied generally with reference to the notion of a compressed form or dose of anything. After the court decision, tabloid lost its capital T and was used generically to mean anything that provided a lot of value in a small package: The small speedy Sopwith biplane has been nicknamed the ‘Tabloid’ because it contains so many good qualities in such small compass. –Aeroplane, 1913. When gossipy newspapers with pages half the size of standard newspapers came into vogue, they were called tabloids. Because the content of tabloid newspapers is deliberately scandalous and irreverent, the word has given birth to tabloid as an adjective meaning sensationalistic, and tabloidy, meaning trashy. Not only is factoid now in wide use with the meaning â€Å"a minor fact,† it has taken on a new meaning in the realm of industrial trade shows. I found a reference to â€Å"product factoids† on a Cardiovascular Research Foundation site: A product factoid is a PowerPoint presentation of product and/or treatment specs. These could include product size, product profile, and approval status. CRF has designed PowerPoint templates specific to each product or treatment category. Here’s a link to the article by the astute blogger quoted above: â€Å"What’s a Factoid?† As regards my own lapse, The only thing faster than the speed of thought is the speed of forgetfulness. Good thing we have other people to help us remember.†Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬â€œVera Nazarian. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:The Royal Order of Adjectives Difference between "Pressing" and "Ironing"Ebook, eBook, ebook or e-book?