After William Caxton ignited the communications revolution with his invention of the printing press in 1476, English literature burst forth, reaching its full bloom in the sonnets and plays of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare, the deceased legend who was a legend when he was living. Shakespeare, of whom everything has been said, his life and works having been chronicled in countless Ph.D. theses.

Well not quite everything, because it is a little known—actually unknown—fact that he was the first author to introduce commercial sponsorship into his plays to help pay for the production costs. For example, in Macbeth “Out damned spot!” was sponsored by a dry cleaning establishment; King Lear’s “Nothing will come of nothing,” by an off-track bookmaking organization; and from As You Like It “All the world’s a stage,” by the Globe theatre itself, where many of Shakespeare’s plays were performed.

There is a popular saying—among publishers, I might add—that trade follows the book. But actually the reverse is true, for not only did British entrepreneurs set out to push their goods and chattel, but also to colonize the rest of the world under the quaint notion that everyone should be like them. And nowhere is this more apparent than in America, where a bunch of disgruntled Puritans, who felt persecuted in England, settled in Massachusetts to enjoy the freedom to persecute others and brought the bible, King James authorized version, of course, as well as the language, a decidedly East Anglian dialect.

And spread the Word and words they did. But these Puritans weren’t the only folks on this vast continent, and what came to be American English borrowed heavily from those already here. From the native American tongues, for example, we have the words slot machine, one-arm bandit, and blackjack. From the Spanish we took words dealing with hot spicy foods, such as enchilada, as well as tough dudes: desperados. More words came from the French in New Orleans, and the New York Dutch.

But it isn’t only American English that meandered away from the mother tongue. For although the British did not accomplish their goal of colonizing the world, their language has more than made up the difference. From Aruppukkottai to Zagreb; from Abu Dhabi to Zanzibar; you will find English spoken in all sorts of delicious permutations wherever the four winds blow, in every corner of the globe, although how an orbiting spheroid can have corners sure beats me.