Professor Archibald Montague Cavendish did not just teach Shakespeare at university; he lived in a permanent state of pentameter. So, when a lime-green hatchback blew through a stop sign and pulverized the right front panel of his vintage blue Volvo, Archibald suffered a Shakespearean tragedy.

Professor Cavendish exploded from his vehicle.

“Thou scullion! Thou rampallian! Thou fustilarian!” he screamed.

The perpetrator, a man wearing a neon orange tank top and backward baseball cap, stepped out of the hatchback, inspecting his crumpled bumper.

“Bro, you totally hit me!” the man yelled.

Archibald’s face turned the shade of a ripe plum.

“I hit thee?!” Archibald bellowed. “Thou milk-livered, lily-livered scurvy knave! Thou hast mangled my chariot with thine own egregious, blockheaded incompetence!”

The man blinked. “What did you just call me? Speak English, man!”

“I speak the tongue of kings, thou illiterate........

© Peterborough Examiner