Shakespeare's neologisms

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So how many words did Will actually invent? What are some that are still in common use? What are some that should be in common use?Opus the Penguin (that's my real email addy)You snipped my sig!

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[nq:1]So how many words did Will actually invent? What are some that are still in common use? What are some that should be in common use?[/nq]
Would you like us to make up answers, or would you like to read what Shakespearean scholars have said?
When this came up before, I suggested this list at Rhymezone: http://www.rhymezone.com/r/gwic.cgi?Path=shakespeare/coinages//

The introduction to the book Coined by Shakespeare is at: http://www.m-w.com/lighter/shak/intro.htm
As they say,
...it is extremely difficult to say with absolute certainty that a given individual invented a particular word. Coinages typically arise out of speech and are not documented for some time after they are actually introduced. The problem of identifying the precise origin of a word is magnified when dealing with manuscripts from the Renaissance period... Nobody can say for certain that a word credited to Shakespeare will not be found someday in an older manuscript by another writer, but for the present, the Bard is the earliest known user of the words given here...

Best wishes Donna Richoux

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]So how many words did Will actually invent? What are ... use? What are some that should be in common use?[/nq]
[nq:1]Would you like us to make up answers, or would you like to read what Shakespearean scholars have said?[/nq]
Both, please! Thanks for reposting your previous answer. I should've googled the archives.

Opus the Penguin (that's my real email addy)
You snipped my sig!

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[nq:2]Would you like us to make up answers, or would you like to read what Shakespearean scholars have said?[/nq]
[nq:1]Both, please! Thanks for reposting your previous answer. I should've googled the archives.[/nq]
I, on the other hand, am of the school of caution. The fact that compilers of Dictionaries like the Oxford English & Merriam Webster have found so many words first quoted in Shakespeare is, IMHO, a dubious reason for believing Shakespeare coined them. By some estimates, five to ten per cent of the vocabulary of any work of Shakespeare's was invented by him. Why aren't there contemporary references of people complaining they had problems understanding what he was saying? Imagine you went to a play tomorrow by a modern author and there were a hundred words you'd never heard of before. Don't you think someone would say something? Lewis Carroll invented a few dozen words (and we know he did invent them) and we discuss them regularly.
I don't doubt there were some* words Shakespeare coined, but I think he gets cited as 'first user' because (a) a lot of his stuff survives in print and (b) writers prior to Shakespeare often *don't survive in print to any great extent.
The earliest cite for 'bicentennial' in the OED is > Do people go around claiming Sam coined it?
The honour of first cite for 'allus' as a slang term for 'always' goes to one C. Dickens. Did he make it up? Or was he reflecting what he heard? The OED website archives their newsletter and at
http://www.oed.com/pdfs/oed-news-2002-12.pdf
you find the December 2002 edition in which they say :

>
And at http://www.oed.com/about/oed3-preface/distractions.html
we find >

And at http://www.oed.com/newsletters/1999-01/
>

Reading between the lines, the OED are at some pains to distance themselves from the 'look how many words Shakespeare coined' enthusiasts, but don't like to say so too loud because it's one of the selling points of the product.
Incidentally, the Shakespeare thing has become something of a UL, but Chaucer is also first cite for many words. Nobody seems to make a fuss about 'look how many words Chaucer invented'.
Didja know Chaucer invented 'newfangled'? Well, DIDJA!?

And to the wood he will, and wormes eat;
So newefangle be they of their meat,
And love novelties, of proper kind;
No gentleness of bloode may them bind.
(Squire's Tale)
BTW, it's very nice to see you here but I don't recollect you being here much in the past, my sphenisciform sparring partner. What brings you to these here parts?

John Dean
Oxford
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[nq:1]The earliest cite for 'bicentennial' in the OED is > Do people go around claiming Sam coined it?[/nq]
Interesting. The only pre-1900 citation in ProQuest (at least the parts I have access to, is from April, 1885 in The Atlantic Monthly , on the bicentennial anniversary of the births of Handel and J.S. Bach (the latter given as "John Sebastian").
Looking at the Making of America site, however, the word can be traced back to at least June, 1865, from the National Council of Congregational Churches:
The Presbyterians, of both assemblies, have such houses in Philadelphia; the Methodists in New York; and our Congregational brethren in England have just raised by subscription two hundred thousand pounds sterling, as their bi-centennial fund, out of which, among other objects important to their denomination, they propose to erect such a building, for purposes similar to those which we contemplate, with the title of the "Memorial Hall."

There are 10 hits in that collection, most of which definitely predate
1883. One of them (or, rather, the context), from 1868, has a veryAUEish flavor. It's from the Proceedings of the Essex Institute:
Mr. Wildes, after a facetious allusion to the manner in which his historical speech at Kittery had been shortened, remarked upon the auntiquity of this town of Ipswich. Its very appearance, he said, stamps both its age and its origin. In all the country he had never seen any village which so much resembles an English country town. Its long wide English street, which probably had its terminus at the church, the style of the houses, and everything that is old, convey the impression of a genuine English hamlet.

The names, too, suggest the same thing. Besides that of the town, which is simply borrowed from the English, there is "Pudding street," as it used to be called. He protested against the notion that this had a gastronomical origin, and suggested that it was once "Put in" street, and invited stragers to put in there, or come in. But even if this theory be rejected, we can remember that one of the prominent streets in London is called "Pudding Land." He advised the people of the town, if they had not already repudiated the name, to hold on to it.
I suspect that dictionaries are going to be doing a lot of first citation revision over the coming years.

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[nq:2]The earliest cite for 'bicentennial' in the OED is > Do people go around claiming Sam coined it?[/nq]
[nq:1]Interesting. The only pre-1900 citation in ProQuest (at least the parts I have access to, is from April, 1885 in ... site, however, the word can be traced back to at least June, 1865, from the National Council of Congregational Churches:(snip)[/nq]
Searching MoA for the hyphenated form "bi-centennial" finds cites back to 1853 ("A historical sketch of the town of Hanover, Mass., with family genealogies" refers in a footnote to "Lincoln's Bi-Centennial Address"). And the APS database on ProQuest takes it all the way back to 1836:

Niles' Weekly Register
Baltimore: Aug 20, 1836
Vol. 50, Iss. 25; p. 421
BI CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
Friday the 5th inst. was celebrated by the citizens of Providence, R.I. in commemoration of the second centennial return (?) of that city and state.
That looks like some sort of odd headlinese, since "bi(-)centennial" doesn't occur anywhere in the text. The first cite for hyphenated "bi-centennial" is from 1842, and unhyphenated "bicentennial" appears in
1849. But "second centennial" was the more common term for at least afew decades.
[nq:1]I suspect that dictionaries are going to be doing a lot of first citation revision over the coming years.[/nq]
Indeed! The OED's Revision Program

is really going into overdrive with all of these new databases and digital libraries at its disposal.

Shakespeare's neologisms

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