Shakespeare as inventor of new words

[Jonathan Lighter]

And because he was Shakespeare, once he "made them up" everybody knew
exactly what they meant.

If I were to make up a word  (say, "gickblatt") nobody would understand it.

Which once again goes to show Shakespeare's uncanny (of course I mean
"eerie") genius.

JL

On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 10:22 AM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Shapiro, Fred" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Shakespeare as inventor of new words
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Of course, this number will diminish as the revised OED covers the part of
> the alphabet it has not yet reached.  The better research available to the
> revised OED, particularly the ability to search Early English Books Online,
> is, I assume, significantly diminishing Shakespeare's list of coinages.
>
> Fred
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Charles C Doyle [cdoyle at UGA.EDU]
> Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 10:11 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>  Subject: Shakespeare as inventor of new words
>
> Here we go again:  Yahoo News posts the revelation that Shakespeare, when
> he couldn't think of a word, just make one up.  Specifically 1,600 words.
>  As shown in the OED.
>
> http://whoknew.news.yahoo.com/?nc&vid=24811671
>
> --Charlie
>
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