QUINCE: Is all our company here?
BOTTOM: You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip.
QUINCE: Here is the scroll of every man’s name which is thought fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke and the Duchess on his wedding-day at night.
– William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 2. Carpenter Peter Quince is writer and director of the play that the six Mechanicals (craftsmen) of Athens will perform for Duke Theseus’ wedding. He has called them to a meeting in his house to discuss the play-within-a-play. If Quince is the bumbling ringmaster in their delightfully silly circus of a production, then weaver Nick Bottom is the star attraction. In his first sentence in the play we are introduced to the first of his many malapropisms and language slip-ups. He says "scrip" instead of "script" and when he suggests calling the players "generally" he means "individually."