I read this a few times, looking for evidence I missed that it's a joke. Apparently not, but I can't be sure. If it's serious, it's possibly the worst article I've ever read.<p>> But fans of Macbeth often say its freaky qualities are deeper than just the plot devices and characters. For centuries, people been unsettled by the very language of the play.<p>> Actors and critics have long remarked that when you read Macbeth out loud, it feels like your voice and mouth and brain are doing something ever so slightly wrong. There’s something subconsciously off about the sound of the play, and it spooks people. It’s as if Shakespeare somehow wove a tiny bit of creepiness into every single line. The literary scholar George Walton Williams described the “continuous sense of menace” and “horror” that pervades even seemingly innocuous scenes.<p>> For centuries, Shakespeare fans and theater folk have wondered about this, but could never quite explain it.<p>The article claims to explain it - in the play, the word "the" is used a lot!<p>Um.. gee, in high school it was pointed out to me how constant themes in <i>Macbeth</i> are how unnatural things have become, how everything is strange, qualities/values reversed from normal - <i>fair is foul and foul is fair</i> etc, animals doing weird things, bad omens etc. It never stops, all the way through. I had to go through the play and list how many animals are mentioned, doing strange things. It's constant. People meet and it's not "Lovely day isn't it" but an anecdote about how so-and-so saw something incredibly weird and impossible happen. Over that background is the quickly escalating paranoia and madness of Macbeth & Lady Macbeth. Etc. Can't be bothered writing more, I didn't want to say just "This is total nonsense.", but it is. (Flagged.)