Modern English has totally lost the grave implications of the word that were normal in Shakespeare’s day. When Gloucester describes Regan as a “naughty lady” (King Lear 3.7.37) or Leonato calls Borachio a “naughty man” (Much Ado about Nothing 5.1.284) we cannot now avoid the impression that these are mild, “smack-hand” rebukes. It is all the more important, therefore, to stress the strong sense the word had in Elizabethan English when referring to people: “wicked, evil, vile”. Concepts - such as the world, the times, and the earth - can also be “naughty”, and here too we need to note that the tone is serious not playful, as in Portia’s description of a candle flame in the darkness: “So shines a good deed in a naughty world” (Merchant of Venice 5.1.91).

David Crystal David Crystal is author, with Ben Crystal, of Shakespeare’s Words published by Penguin in June.