The words predict and forecast are largely used interchangeably today, but in Shakespeare’s time, they meant different things. A prediction was what the soothsayer told you; a forecast was something more like Cassius’s idea. The term forecast came from English’s Germanic roots,20 unlike predict, which is from Latin.21 Forecasting reflected the new Protestant worldliness rather than the otherworldliness of the Holy Roman Empire. Making a forecast typically implied planning under conditions of uncertainty. It suggested having prudence, wisdom, and industriousness, more like the way we now use
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