w o r d s p a c e  has a daily project: words in the news.   Random encounters with news of words reforming and asserting around the world.    Today?  w o r d spa c e   googled "language words news poetry meaning" and got a bit of Shakepeare redux news from Augusta, Ga where ASU's Dr. Walter Evans rewrote Midsummer's  to get rid of the bard's phoniness...

">metrospirit.com/index.php?cat=1993101070593169&ShowArticle_ID=11013003100787959   Alice Wynn

...The stories of the four young lovers — Lysander (Michael Lay), Hermia (Chelse Stetz), Demetrius (Eric Mills) and Helena (Elizabeth Miller) — remain the same, although now they have Facebook and Twitter.

“There are a lot of contemporary things happening just like if the play were happening in present day. I think people will be able to take this project for what it is and enjoy it and they’ll be able to understand it completely,” he said.

In translating the story line by line, Evans wanted to make the language more accessible as well as make it more enjoyable for audiences. He did, however, adhere to a few of the rules.

“Our version, where Shakespeare uses prose, we use prose. Where he uses blank verse… we do that. When he has rhyme with eight-syllable lines or three-syllable lines, whether it’s couplets or more complicated rhymes, we imitate that,” Evans said. “When you read Shakespeare, or see one of his plays performed, the poetry sounds phony; it sounds phony because the words sound phony. But when you do it in modern language, it starts sounding like fun.”