Must needs? When did this happen?
Perhaps a half-dozen times in the past week, I’ve read sentences with contain the phrase “must needs.” I have never considered this construction before; frankly, it sounds totally bizarre to my inner ear (my spiritual inner ear, that is).
Thus, it must needs be that I’ve been teleported to another world, a world in which the English language developed differently than it did in the world from which I came. This tiny grammatical gem is the only evidence of my true origin.
Posted: Friday, November 17, 2006 7:49:15pm
Category: Personal
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Comment from Van
Time: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 7:16:22pm
I think the phrase dates back at least to Elizabethan times; I recall it from a monologue by Caliban in Shakespeare's The Tempest. A quick Google search reveals its occurrence in Pericles, King John, Henry VI part 2, King Lear, Troilus and Cressida, Timon of Athens, and The Merchant of Venice as well.
O Bardless World from which you teleport! (Pardon the iambic pentameter.)