Talk:The lady doth protest too much, methinks/Archives/2023/December

Methinks
The second paragraph contains a somewhat misleading characterization of a form of this saying as being in the "first person." Perhaps "methinks" can be regarded as first person, although grammatically it isn't quite. In any case the principal clause "thou dost protest too much" is in the second person, not first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jro571 (talk • contribs) 17:04, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Actual meaning
"The phrase's actual meaning implies the increasing likelihood of suppressed feelings for the contrary of that which is being argued. I.e., the more passionate and fervent the argument, the greater likelihood the cause is a suppression of belief for the contrary argument, and the subsequent confirmation that it is the (actual) truer statement." - what? How is this any different from the description in the first paragraph? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.138.191.209 (talk) 13:06, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I deleted part of the later uses, since the source contradicted the statement.
title — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.190.181.66 (talk) 21:21, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Footnote 3 for Alanis Morissette's "Doth I Protest Too Much" [sic]
"Even in the Middle Ages, this should simply have been "Do I""

This footnote justification for including "[sic]" after the title of this Alanis Morissette song needs a citation. Also, I'm wondering if including this footnote, while I'm sure it is likely a true statement, is even actually necessary or relevant beyond being a factoid, unless accompanied by further explanation. —144.167.121.221 (talk) 02:49, 6 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Why 'the Middle Ages'? 'Hamlet' was written c. 1600. 86.41.176.51 (talk) 02:10, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

In Popular Culture
I've removed the following list of pop-culture trivia from the article. Per WP:NOTEVERYTHING, "A Wikipedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject. Verifiable and sourced statements should be treated with appropriate weight". All but one of these pop-culture references are unsourced (and the one source is unrelated to the topic), and I frankly doubt whether reliable, secondary sources can be found to support encyclopedic coverage of these examples. See also MOS:POPCULT.

Alanis Morissette wrote a song titled "Doth I Protest Too Much" for her album So-Called Chaos.

In the David Ives play Venus In Fur, Vanda proclaims, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much," as she pries for information regarding Thomas' defensiveness about his sexual past.

"Me thinks the lady doth protest" is quoted by Gunther Hartog in the TV adaptation of Sidney Sheldon's If Tomorrow Comes.

"Me thinks the lady doth protest" is quoted in Channel 4 comedy Peep Show series 3 episode 1, and then again by Mark in series 8, but with the altered wording, "The lady doth eat bhajis too much, methinks."

The line is used by one of the characters in the movie (500) Days of Summer as a retort to the lead female's assertions that she doesn't believe in monogamous relationships.

In the video game Kid Icarus: Uprising, Dark Pit, a doppelganger of the hero Pit, fights Pit while referencing the line saying, "Methinks the puppet doth protest too much". This is directed at Pit as Dark Pit is something of a flipped reflection of Pit's personality and feelings, making him question Pit as to the extent of his devotion to his goddess Palutena.

The line was referenced in Spectacular Spider-Man television series. In episode 20, "Identity Crisis," the character Venom, while fighting against the show's titular character, states "The spider doth protests too much, wethinks," referencing the Shakespeare line but changed the sentence structure to fit the scene and characters.

The line was used by photography professor Mark Jefferson in the video game Life is Strange, in relation to the allegation of a rape by a female student against a wealthy, unlikeable male student, attempting to deflect attention from the hidden fact that he was responsible for what happened to her.

The line was used in season 5 episode 9 (The Ski Lift) of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry presses Richard's nurse, who formerly dated Jeff, and indicated to him that Jeff had a small penis. After Larry confronts Jeff, Jeff denies the insinuation, and insists it is the nurse, Lisa Thompson, that has a big vagina. When Larry confronts Lisa about this, she denies it, at which time Larry says, "he thinks the lady doth protest too much".

A mangled version of the line appears in season 13 episode 8 of Family Guy ("Our Idiot Brian"), when Peter tries to call attention to the fact that Brian denies claims that he is unintelligent despite proof to the contrary (his low SAT score), by spouting off the line, "Methinks the Hoff protest a month."

—Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:10, 22 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with this removal - if this article were to include every instance of a fictional article stating some variation of this phrase, plus the context for it, the article would get monstrously large. It's a fairly common phrase. Still, it's a little sad that future generations won't get to see the quote "The lady doth eat bhajis too much", from Peep Show. Korny O&#39;Near (talk) 00:23, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Italic title
Re my removal and 's restoration of italics of the article title - is the use of italics here considered conformant to WP:ITALICTITLE? And if so, how so? Batternut (talk) 20:14, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I hadn't really considered this issue before. I expect the italics here are being used per MOS:WORDSASWORDS, but I am, at least initially, inclined to give greater weight to MOS:NOITALQUOTE. However, WP:MOS doesn't really address articles that are specifically about a quotation directly, and the interaction with MOS:LEAD does create some special concerns (Are the quote marks bolded? Either way looks kinda clunky.). --Xover (talk) 07:12, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I see it can be argued that a quotation is a mention (qv Use–mention distinction) so WORDSASWORDS could apply. I have no doubt though that NOITALQUOTE applies, ie it is a quotation. NOITALQUOTE does allow italics where "the material would otherwise call for italics" - but I see no call for it other than by virtue of being a quote. Should this particular quote be a mention calling for italics, then all quotes are mentions calling for italics, and NOITALQUOTE becomes moot. In any case WORDSASWORDS allows the use of quote marks for various cases including for whole sentences, so that guideline is not being broken. Agreed that articles like this aren't specifically targeted by the MOS. In the absence of a better argument to the contrary, I'm happy with the case for quotes. ping! Batternut (talk) 00:47, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I originally put the phrase in italics since it has evidently entered the lexicon as a stock phrase, and is no longer always a quotation of Hamlet per se (especially since it is often misquoted, as the article points out). Marjorie Garber states that the phrase "has become a kind of verbal macro, implying a generalized doubt about someone's sincerity—not a specific reference to Hamlet..." After All, p. 40). Since MOS doesn't directly address such a scenario, I decided to be bold and italicize it per the use-mention distinction, in line with other stock phrases that originated as specific quotations, such as axis of evil, reality-based community, veni, vidi, vici'', and others. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:52, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Veni, vidi, vici is Latin, it always requires italics. The "stock phrase" point is interesting - it seems to rely on the reuser not knowing that the phrase is a quote. This is plausible for reality-based community, perhaps one day for axis of evil, but quite untenable for the line "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Gerber's point, usage not being "a specific reference to Hamlet, Gertrude, or the way a play can catch the conscience of the King" does not mean that the speaker is ignorant of the fact that they are using someone else's words. Many or most users of this quote may not know which play it comes from, but I'm sure they know they are pinching someone else's words, ie that it is a quotation, not just jargon or suchlike. Batternut (talk) 10:35, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Pinching someone else's words is kind of how all language works, especially jargon and slang. Otherwise there would be a separate language for every person, or no languages at all. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:52, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * MOS:NOITALQUOTE seems to refer to the typical use of quotations in articles, that is, to explain a topic, attribute an opinion, etc. This article, on the other hand, is about the phrase/quotation itself, and so mentions the quote whereas those other instances use the quoted text. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:32, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
 * How does MOS:NOITALQUOTE refer to just "the typical use of quotations in articles", rather than all uses? If we expect analytic philosophizing over the nuances of use versus mention to determine our formatting of quotes then we should change the MOS accordingly. Batternut (talk) 10:35, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The vast majority of quotations on Wikipedia are not in articles about the quotations themselves. MOS reflects this. Use vs. mention is a pretty clear-cut distinction. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:53, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * To answer 's question: it seems clear from reading MOS:NOITALQUOTE, and its provided example, that it is written about the general case of using a quotation in the body of an article. There is nothing in that section to suggest that it attempts to address this type of case. This, of course, doesn't mean that NOITALQUOTE doesn't apply to this case; only that we cannot rely on it for complete guidance. Which is why this is a difficult knot to untangle: we're left with having to figure out the interaction between, and relative priority of, NOITALQUOTE and MOS:WORDSASWORDS.And while I started out leaning towards NOITALQUOTE, I have been listing further and further towards WORDSASWORDS as the discussion progressed. Which suggests to me that the three of us will neither be able to resolve the issue for this article, nor produce a sufficient local consensus to be applicable to other articles about quotations and stock phrases.Which in turn means we should probably ask WT:MOS for help to get a wider view. It may not be of sufficient import (applies to too few articles in total) to justify specific guidance in the WP:MOS, but it is something that should be treated fairly consistently across the project. --Xover (talk) 07:43, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Sounds fine to me. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 11:23, 21 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree a wider forum is required. Would it be best for the least animated of us, eg to do, so? Batternut (talk) 23:04, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Line or phrase?
Regarding whether to describe the topic in the lead as a phrase or a line, reliable sources can be found for both. Per Marjorie Garber in Shakespeare After All (p. 40): "A phrase like 'The lady protests too much, methinks' [...] is regularly used, or abused, to mark any perceived injustice or pretended reluctance [...]"

Garber then states in Profiling Shakespeare (p. 280): "In fact the phrase about protesting so much is so common—and so commonly misapplied—that 'doth protest' appears, often ungramatically as [...] a shorthand expression [...]"

Garner's Modern English Usage (4th edition, p. 67) states: "Sometimes an error creeps in from the mangling of a set phrase. A famous quotation from Shakespeare's Hamlet, for example, is that 'the lady doth protest too much'."

Another source I recently added, from Cambridge Scholars Publishing, states on page 171: "'The lady doth protest too much, methinks' only figures in the very early Quartos [...] this variant of the phrase is not normally read or heard by the public in the context of the play [...]"

Other sources stress the use of the expression in everyday speech as a stock phrase. R.A. Foakes states in Hamlet Versus Lear (p. 158): "'The lady [doth protest Q2] protests too much methinks' has been wrenched out of context to become a 'cliché for the sexual "inconstancy" of females'."

Plenty of other sources also call it a phrase. There's nothing that says a phrase can't be a complete sentence. One definition of phrase is "an idiomatic or short pithy expression" per Oxford Dictionaries, which gives several examples that are short, complete sentences. See also A Dictionary of Anglo-American Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases (Peter Lang, 2005, p. 445), which includes The lady doth protest too much, methinks. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 11:13, 27 February 2018 (UTC)


 * A phrase can be a sentence because it is a very wide term. "Line" is more specific, and more informative, which is better. A line obviously becomes a phrase when reused in longer sentences, and I would guess that it usually is. What is being quoted, and what this article is about, is the line from Hamlet. This argument is just part of 's campaign for treatment of quotations articles as words-for-words articles. Before Sangdeboeuf's edits (prior version) the lead had happily referred to it as a quotation for over two years. Batternut (talk) 11:47, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
 * It is no longer just a line from Hamlet. Calling it a phrase implies a wider usage, which is appropriate to the topic here. See Garber again (pp. 39–40): "Instead, Shakespeare is evoked, and invoked, as an eloquent coiner of eloquent phrases. The phrases, floating free of their immediate context, have become 'Shakespeare' [...] It is no longer the case that a knowledge of the plays or of the playwright necessarily precedes quotation from them. A phrase like 'The lady protests too much, methinks' [...] is regularly used, or abused, to mark any perceived injustice or pretended reluctance [...]"
 * It is no longer just a line from Hamlet. Calling it a phrase implies a wider usage, which is appropriate to the topic here. See Garber again (pp. 39–40): "Instead, Shakespeare is evoked, and invoked, as an eloquent coiner of eloquent phrases. The phrases, floating free of their immediate context, have become 'Shakespeare' [...] It is no longer the case that a knowledge of the plays or of the playwright necessarily precedes quotation from them. A phrase like 'The lady protests too much, methinks' [...] is regularly used, or abused, to mark any perceived injustice or pretended reluctance [...]"


 * In any event, the article now includes both line and phrase, with line in the opening sentence, so unless there's an objection to the current wording, this debate is merely a philosophical exercise. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:41, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

Sense of "protest"
I've removed the above text, which looks purely like original synthesis based on an unrelated dictionary definition. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:25, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is often misquoted as "Methinks the lady doth protest too much"
A much commoner and more egregious misquote is "Methinks thou doth protest too much".
 * I'm not sure whether it is a misquote, or a referencing for a given situation. JohndanR (talk) 14:16, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Ironic label is not justified (yet)
Good morning,

If WP:CATEGORY states The central goal of the category system is to provide navigational links to Wikipedia pages in a hierarchy of categories which readers, knowing essential—defining—characteristics of a topic, can browse and quickly find sets of pages on topics that are defined by those characteristics."

And WP:CATDEF states: A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently refer to in declarative statements

And WP:REDFLAG states Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources.

Therefore, if the presence of Category:Irony on this page is justified, it needs more than a passing, unexplained reference in one nearly 20 year old college textbook to be considered a defining characteristic.

See also this discussion on User_talk:Sangdeboeuf.

Thank you, Kire1975 (talk) 14:05, 16 November 2022 (UTC)