Shakespeare invented the words anchovy, well-ordered, worm-hole and zany. Or did he? I’ve been nagged at the back of my mind (a tender spot) by doubts about Shakespeare ever since I wrote (5 June) about Dr David Crystal’s remarks in his excellent book The Stories of English. Dr Crystal notes that of the 2,035 words (or ‘lexemes’) first attributed to Shakespeare in the Oxford English Dictionary, 743 are found elsewhere within 25 years of his using them, and that 900 words eventually fall out of usage.
So how many coinages can we attribute to Shakepeare? Dr Crystal concludes, ‘Whether we assess his lexical contribution as 800 or 1,700, it is still hugely impressive compared with the contribution of other writers.’
Certainly Dr Crystal does not merely assert that any word recorded in the dictionary as being used earliest by Shakespeare was his invention.
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