This is kind of an open secret in the Shakespearian acting community. There's this thing called a 'nub,' a passage that means very little but sounds very much like something Shakespeare wrote. It's used by actors to cover up a lapse in their memory and to signal to their fellow actors to help them out.
You had to 'nub' early on the sentence to indicate that you had 'dried.' For example Donald Wolfit, nubbed like this once: "List, I sense a nubbing in far glens, where minnows swoop the pikey deep which is unpiked less pikey be, cross-bolted in their crispy muffs and choose the trammelled way . . . Oh freeze my soul in fitful sleep lest wind-filled sprites bequim the air and take us singly or in threes in mad agog or lumpsome nub, aghast to Milford Haven."
Read more about it here.
