Plenty of us have "not slept one wink", been "eaten out of house and home" or read through a sonnet in high school english class and thought "it was Greek to me".
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
And we have William Shakespeare to thank for all these handy phrases.
A Canberra meetup, running for the past four years, is proving there are many of us that continue a fascination with understanding and bringing life to Shakespearean text long after we've left the classroom.
Laura Dixon co-ordinates fortnightly readings of both the classic and lesser-known plays in living rooms across the capital.
And while she is a keen fan, and studied Shakespeare at university, she said co-ordinating the group was a role bequeathed to her by the founder who left four years ago for Melbourne.
"We have been going for four and half years now," she said. "Plays are meant to be heard aloud and everyone gets something from it you just can't reading them to yourself."
The group is reading Othello through October but has read all Shakespeare's plays twice and is moving through the list for the third time.
ANU English and Drama scholar Dr Kate Flaherty said in the era of text messages and emoticons it was great to see people's enthusiasm to engage with the early modern English plays in the spirit in which they were written.
"The plays were written to entertain people not to educate people," she said.
"One of the problems with Shakespeare is perception and stigma. People come at it having found it difficult at school and it makes them feel stupid because they haven't understood themselves as succeeding at it in an educational context."
One of the best ways to overcome anxieties about iambic pentameter and reading verse was to do it, she said.
"We have moved to being a very visual culture and we are instinctively ready for a visual adventure in the form of a film or video game, we don't have the same lust for auditory adventure that would have been the case in Shakespeare's era," she said.
"Anything that can reignite that is a great thing and certainly speaking the words does that."
While some regard Shakespeare as the greatest English writer it is not compulsory to study his works as part of the Australian curriculum, nor in any ACT college, however the subject matter is widely incorporated.
Ms Dixon said the meetup group attracted readers of all ages, from members in their 20s to others in their 60s who had not studied the playwright in school.
But she stressed it was far from being an exclusive clique of thespians.
The relaxed sessions on someone's couch allowed for people to stumble, play with character voices and were always culminated in a chat over supper treats and hot drinks.
"We are not acting, it's not a drama group, we are just reading aloud," she said.
"We make a point of that it is casual, we don't care how you read, whether you struggle to say or make sense of something. It's not easy, so we are really supportive of working it out together."
