Linguistic changes do not occur overnight. At any point along the development of English, old and new usages coexist, sometimes as sheer alternatives, sometimes with overtones on the one side or on the other of obsolescence, up-to-dateness, formality or colloquialism fitting them to one register or variety of English rather than to another. Exploitation of the possibilities created by this situation in its late sixteenth and early seventeenth century form is an essential part of Shakespeare's dramatic and poetic technique, and to recognize that in a particular scene, speech or line, or in one character, he is making use of the shifting linguistic conditions of his time is to see more of his skill as a manipulator of language, as well as to understand better the particular incident involved.

In Romeo and Juliet for example, just before the Balcony scene, Mercutio has a longish speech in which he mocks Romeo's infatuation with Rosaline by calling after him: