The queen of modern slang: Jane Austen is revealed to have coined phrases we use everyday



Oxford professor revealed how much Austen has influenced our language

I s quoted 1,640 times in the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary

Came up with the phrase: ‘if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you 100 times’.

Jane Austen is quoted 1,640 times in the most recent edition of the Oxford English Dictionary

Shut up, dirt cheap and dog-tired would roll off the tongue of any Tom, Dick or Harry today.

But you wouldn’t have expected them to flow from the pen of genteel Jane Austen.

Now the increasing influence of Austen on contemporary English has been highlighted.

Oxford professor Charlotte Brewer told the Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye that while Austen had a great influence on the first Oxford English Dictionary published in 1928, she is quoted 1,640 times in the most recent edition.

Entries include 321 phrases from her 1815 novel Emma, which includes ‘dinner-party’ and ‘brace yourself’.

She also came up with ‘if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you 100 times’.

This comes as it is revealed that a new TV version of her famous novel Pride and Prejudice is set to be aired next Christmas.

Welsh actor Matthew Rhys will take on the role of Mr Darcy in new BBC adaptation Death Comes to Pemberley, a novel by crime writer PD James, which tells the story of Jane Austen’s Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett six years after they married.

Rhys, who has previously starred in Brothers and Sisters and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, has already admitted he faces a huge challenge to follow Firth’s 1995 portrayal of Mr Darcy.



Mr Darcy: Matthew Rhys, left, will be taking the role of Jane Austen's heartthrob memorably played by Colin Firth n 1995, right



The 38-year-old said: ‘Exciting as it is, one of the challenges of a part such as Darcy are the comparisons that will be drawn to those who have institutionalised him in the past.

‘The beauty of Pemberley is that it is an entirely new and different Darcy six years on.



'And also, I don’t have to appear from a lake in a white shirt and breeches.’

Anna Maxwell Martin, who starred in The Bletchley Circle, will play Lizzie.

Smouldering: Colin Firth in the famous wet shirt scene from the 1995 version

Popular role: Matthew MacFadyen also played Mr Darcy opposite Keira Knightley in the film from 2005

The novel has been adapted into three one-hour programmes.

Rhys will also follow in the footsteps of Spooks actor Matthew Macfadyen, who played Mr Darcy to Keira Knightley’s Lizzie in the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice.