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In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of different things going on to celebrate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. But this might be the most random yet…
A smart phone app called ShakeSpeak is launching April 7. It’s been developed by SwiftKey with VisitLondon.com and, yeah, it sounds pretty nifty (if by nifty you mean it can turn your texts into Shakespearean prose by predicting the playwright’s best known phrases).
You simply type the first word or two of a famous quote from a Shakespeare play, and then it will finish the text off for you.
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Even better, it’s free to download so you can see for yourself. But to give you an idea…
Write To be or and the ShakeSpeak will add not to be, that is the question
Similarly, put in a text the words The course of and it will finish it with true love never did run smooth.
Or, how about writing All the and thanks to technology, you’ll end up with world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players after it.
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Tip when using the app: use Thou’, ‘thee’ and ‘thy’ in your text messages. Fo’ real – SwiftKey says these three words are among the most frequent that Shakespeare uses compared to how we speak today.
Or, you know, start your sentence with ‘What ho!, accompanied by plenty of exclamation marks, for a truly authentic Shakespearean feel.
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Commenting on the development of ShakeSpeak, SwiftKey’s Head of Partnerships Sarah Rowley said: “We are delighted to be combining the Bard’s works with our smartphone keyboard technology for the first time.
“SwiftKey learns from your writing style, so who better to have as your guide than one of the world’s greatest wordsmiths?
“Shakespeare brought language to the masses in innovative and exciting ways – and now people can experience his unique and timeless use of language on their smartphone keyboard.”
ShakeSpeak is available to download from April for smartphones and tablets on Google Play (just search ShakeSpeak) – and also via SwiftKey Greenhouse, the company’s hub for experimental software.
