Talk:A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

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The Rose theatre[edit]

The Rose theatre, not far from Shakespeare's own Globe Theatre, was well known for its lack of sanitation and appalling smell, and was the butt of many jokes by Shakespeare. It is alleged that the phrase "that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" was a tongue-in-cheek remark. Perhaps the article should mention this? nagualdesign (talk) 19:15, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

False[edit]

It should be noted that this is actually false, as names given to things to actually affect people's perception of them. One can google countless studies proving that. Our brains are biased by nature. 83.33.101.220 (talk) 14:26, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't that exactly the point? One's "perception" is not necessarily the reality of the situation. I can be looking at a doughnut and, in my perception, it is a canary. That's just my perception. In reality, it is a doughnut, regardless of my perception and regardless of what I think it is. No? My thinking that it is a canary does not, in fact, make the doughnut become a canary. Right? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 02:53, 8 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It is my belief and understanding of Shakespeare's passage, that his suggestion is that labels often belie the truth of a matter. the intended significance of this passage is that we should use our discretion, to think independently and examine issues, matters, things and people independently of the labels they are attributed, such as left, right, democrat, republican, liberal, etc... It was the ignorance and accompanying irrational hatred of two families' assumptions about labels, that led to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RobertMilares79 (talk • contribs) 20:51, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Title[edit]

The current title seems to be less popular than the more widely known and generic "What's in a name?". It should be noted that while this is now a somewhat common English phrase, the exact wording and thought behind it was entirely Shakespeare's invention. Google Books gives 8.220 results for ["A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" -wikipedia] and 70.400 results for ["What's in a name?" -wikipedia] (though admittedly, the latter includes some mistakenly). The current title is even "wrong" according to the article's lead. Prinsgezinde (talk) 18:08, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think that "What's in a name" should redirect to "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet".

(Further support of my edit: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1112/pg1112-images.html) --User123o987name (talk) 07:54, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"paraphrase"?[edit]

Why does the article say this is paraphrased? It seems to be a direct quote, with zero paraphrasing. The direct quote is even underlined in the section of the article reciting the original text. Ikjbagl (talk) 19:15, 22 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]