Shakespeare was indecisive.

Admittedly, I've never been the biggest fan of Shakespeare. Not that I don't like his work, but I've always had a fondness for Christopher Marlowe. (Any man who gets killed in a brawl and has a list of enemies longer than Richard Nixon must be doing something right in life.) Shakespeare is routinely anointed as the father of writing within the English language. In a way he's often viewed as infallible.

So consider me relieved to find out that Shakespeare could never make up his mind on how he wanted to spell his own name. It's true. According to Bill Bryson's book on Shakespeare, (Shakespeare: The World As Stage)(which isn't nearly as sandpaper dry as you might assume), the six known signatures of Shakespeare still in existence are spelled six different ways. They are:

1.) Willm Shaksp (oooh, it's just like Wheel of Fortune!)
2.) William Shakespe
3.) Wm Shakspe
4.) William Shakspere (getting closer...)
5.) Willm Shakspere
6.) William Shakspeare (so close...but not quite)

For those of you who aren't too quick on the uptake, I'd like to point out that none of those versions spell his name like we currently spell it in America. But, hey, why spell a man's name like he ever spelled it if he can't decide for himself, right?

We can't entirely peg this indecisiveness on Shakespeare alone. Apparently Elizabethan England always jazzed up the spelling of routine words, never mind their own names. According to Bryson, some letters had 20 different ways of appearing on the written page. (A's could looks like h's, etc.)

So, here's what I suggest to my fellow English majors: If you ever get docked points on a test or research paper for a misspelling, tell your professor that you're just writing like Shakespeare would have. Tell them you're channeling his spirit and want to get back to basics. For added emphasis, make sure you misspell your own name on your paper just like Shakespeare would have. (Unless you already have that problem naturally. In which case, keep the illiteracy vibe going.) That covers you for any screw up you might create later on in your essay. For instance, I might spell my name (Patrick) like "Padrock," or maybe just "Patr." It looks a little Czechoslovakian, I admit. But if it was good enough for Shakespeare it has to be good enough for us.