Look at Osric, doubling down on what he was going to say – just trying it again – just going on forward even though Hamlet purposefully misunderstood him.
He doesn’t rephrase, he just tries to continue his original idea – maybe fix it by doubling down on it.

Today I was reading the section of Soraya Chemaly’s book where she lays out how little men think of women’s intelligence and capability. I don’t recall the exact statistic but I believe that men assumed women’s ignorance at a rather startlingly large percentage. The assumption of capability just comes with your gender if you’re a cis male.
I nearly spit with rage when I read about the doctor who was dismissed on the plane, whose credentials were questioned when the first white man to stand up and claim doctorhood was ushered to the sick person immediately.
I am spitting mad about it. And in general. It has always been thus but I cannot tolerate it anymore.

It’s kind of great that Hamlet’s obfuscation of language has made a long sentence maker and obfuscator of language create a sentence as clear and succinct as this. It is a skillful manipulation of linguist style.

Poor Osric. He has no idea what the heck Hamlet is talking about. Hoisted with his own linguistic petard, as it were.

And by infallible, he means – you said what I would have said.
That is, that which I agree with is, in fact, infallible.
I wish that this weren’t true of most men.

I find it hard to believe that Osric doesn’t know that Hamlet already knows Laertes. I mean – first of all – Laertes may have newly returned to court but he’s been around. And Hamlet dated his sister. Which may have been meant to be a secret but really wasn’t.
But here’s Osric describing Laertes as if he’s a total stranger to the court. Is it possible that Osric is so rarely at court himself that Laertes is actually news to him? Or has he been instructed to praise Laertes by Claudius? Or can he just not help talking once he’s got started? I have met people like that – who would describe your own mother to you just because they got started on a descript-o-thon.

Really? Is Laertes here? The one I just wrestled in his sister’s grave? The one I just got REAL mad at for no reason? You’re saying he’s newly come to court? I hadn’t noticed.
And also – I’m amazed that you had not heard that I have already tangled with him, Osric. News does not travel quite as fast as I would have thought.

But of course Osric knows. He must know.

I’d love to plead for my ease. This world we live in is so concerned with that that is hard. We praise hard work, hard workers, those who have had a hard life. We’ll forgive a fault if we saw that the person tried hard.
But to plead for ease? That pleases me.
I learned to value ease from training in Feldenkrais, to move toward that which is easy instead of that which is hard. I have accomplished worlds more from going toward the easeful path rather than the hard one. Which doesn’t mean that I’ve chosen a life of sloth, indolence and ready comforts.

For me, ease is something much more valuable than comfort. Ease creates possibility. It offers movement and choice.
For my ease. I’d risk a great deal.
For my ease, I’d sacrifice, too.

The Osric, in the production I was in ages ago, was played by a woman. I’m thinking about that now because I’m thinking about how these power dynamics would be so complicated by gender. In that production, her Osric didn’t seem to be really gendered. He was just a fop – a Monty Python character with an American accent. And our Hamlet was about her same size. They looked like brother and sister. (Did they play Sebastian and Viola in our accompanying Twelfth Night? I’m actually pretty sure they did, yes.)

But – if the size differential had been bigger, if Osric wore a dress..I don’t know – all these fun orders would read a lot differently.