FANFARE.

Enter a scribe, bearing a quill, stage left.

PRITHEE gentle reader, come hither, lend me thine ears and heed my verse. On the morrow, twill be "Talkest thou like Shakespeare Day" across the land – a day when fair maids and rude-limbed squires of this modern age of ours will affect the tongue of Good Queen Bess's times in praise of Sweet William, the immortal Bard.

That is, tomorrow has been deemed "Talk Like Shakespeare Day" to celebrate the great writer's birthday, when anyone with a love of language will be saying "verily", "gadzooks", comparing their better half to a summer's day and dismissing enemies as "whey-faced loons".

Scotland's leading Shakespeare scholar and co-author of Shakespeare And Scotland, Professor Willy Maley of Glasgow University, is championing the move.

"Verily, and merrily, this soundeth like good sport," said Maley, getting into the spirit of the celebrations. "It's a great idea and I like the way it offers a twist on traditional po-faced birthday celebrations. I think Shakespeare's real riches lie in his wordplay and in his white-knuckle innuendo, which would give Finbarr Saunders or Austin Powers a run for their money.

"Let's celebrate his sexy, slippery, sedimented speech and not just the dry-as-dust inkhorn terms."

The Talk Like Shakespeare Day website encourages people to avoid wasting time saying "it" by simply using the letter "t", as in "'tis and 'twas". It also suggests exchanging swearing about enemies for phrases such as "poisonous bunch-back'd toads", "jackanapes" or "canker-blossoms".

Scottish writer Allan Burnett, author of Macbeth And All That, which compares the real king with Shakespeare's character, said he believes the bard would be pleased with the plans.

He said: "There is a lot of comedy and wordplay in Shakespeare anyway, so having fun with language is something I'm sure he would have approved of."

However, the playful spirit of the Bard seems to have been abandoned by the torchbearers of his legacy. The Royal Shakespeare Company said that the plans were not something on which the theatre group would comment.