humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare

> abbreviated to "Will Shakespeare" (a usage that is never
> documented as having actually been used)

You're doing such a good job against our resident
Omniscience, I hate to break in with a disagreement, Dom,
but Thomas Heywood wrote a poem in which he said
that William Shakespeare was known as Will. 1635:
"Mellifluous *Shake-speare*, whose inchanting Quill/
Commanded Mirth or Passion, was but *Will.* He was
referring to what he thought the disresepct accorded
all the poets of Shakespeare's time. Of course,
he was speaking of a real man whom he almost\certainly knew,
and it's true the conspirators never used "Will Shake-speare," so
your argument seems to me only slightly damaged.