[Lexicog] Re: The influence of Shakespeare on the English language (was: Onomatopoeia)

Mon May 21 18:49:18 UTC 2007

Fritz:  Those were good points about current use of technology and 
the net. It's nice to know that there is still a place for new 
sources for etymological research. The following may be old hat to 
you, too, Fritz, but – for all interested
.
     A point to consider in compiling lists of `coinages,' by any 
author: even if there weren't a semantical problem in determining 
proper parameters for inclusion, there would be questions for 
inclusion on particulars, often borderline cases. Even seasoned 
etymologists can't agree on numbers of Shakespeare coinages, 
estimated from 1,500 to 2,500 (a bell-shaped curve if drawn out). 
Yet, 1,500 seems to be a general consensus by linguists. And many of 
them never made it into the hit parade of adopted diction, 
including "household words" (Shakespeare coinage).
     Your reply to my reply included the phrases "The vast majority 
of the words on this list and similar ones
 for probably 90% of the 
words on the Shakespeare- coinage lists, earlier examples by other 
authors."
     Words per se is not as important as "grammatical categories of 
words" and "origin of words."     
     These groupings, `functional shift' (or `grammatical shift' 
or `category shift') and `borrowing'  are two out of five main 
categories of Shakespearean coinage, and will be illustrated here to 
show why coined `words' per se have necessarily been used "by other 
authors." 
     Shakey shifted extensively, as do all languages generally -- 
over time (e.g. Just google it to see how.). And does anyone picture 
in their mind's eye "flame" when someone mentions being fired from 
their job? Shakespeare coined `partner' as a verb, meaning "matched 
as a dance partner. In Cymbeline 1.6.119-123 we see:  "A lady / so 
fair, and fastened to an empery (empire)  / would make the great'st 
king double, to be partnered  / with tomboys hired with that self 
exhibition / which your own coffers yield;" " (also found in Henry 
VIII). 
     Another functionally shifted example, `Partner,' came from the 
original Latin root `pars,' meaning "a part." From it flowed 
also `parse,' participate,' and partisan'. As a distinct 
morphological English token, `partner' (noun form) dated from the 
fourteenth century, meaning "one who shares", or "joint heir." So the 
anonymous person who recorded (not necessarily extant in hard copy), 
or spoke the word (hardly uncoverable) could be said to have coined 
the word. But technically the English coiner of the word  in the 
1300's was not the first person to use the word. Ask the Romans for 
that one. It could be said to have been said by many sayers, before 
reaching the drawing board of the Bard.      
     Also shifting from noun to verb comes `gossip,' shifted in A 
midsummer Night's Dream 2.1.125 -- from the Old English 
noun `godsibb' from "god" (Germanic "gott") + "sibb" – "kinsman." 
>From Old English it morphed in meaning to (Middle English) "a close 
friend, a person with whom one gossips,' hence `a person who 
gossips,' later (early 19th cent.) `idle talk.' This verbal use of 
the word, Shakespeare's chronologically third time in using it, and 
with the closest meaning to present-day usage reads "His mother was a 
vot'ress* of my order, // And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, // 
Full often hath she gossiped by my side
"  

Vot'ress* woman who has taken a vow (Signet, C.T. Onions) 

     The next example, but from noun to adjective (also a borrowed 
original from Latin) comes `eventful,' found in As You Like It 
2.7.162-165, when Shakespeare shifts function by adding the simple 
suffix `ful' to `event.' "Last scene of all, / that ends this strange 
eventful history / is second childishness and mere oblivion, / sans* 
teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." 
Sans* without  (still in use, but archaic/poetic in context)
     The word came from `event' (noun form) found in English form in 
1573, fifteen years before Shakespeare's earliest play in 1589 (I 
Henry VI). Yet again Latin proves to undermine "pure coinage. The 
origin (unless an Indo-European word predated even that, most likely) 
was the Latin `lacerta.' 
     `Borrowing' is another form of coining. This category appears 
self-evidently – as one language simply duplicates a form from 
another language. But the lines are not so clear-cut here either, as 
in the example of `alligator.' Before Shakespeare coined the term, 
the concept of a "large crocodile-type" lizard was represented in 
English by `ligarto' or `aligarto (or other similar derivatives) from 
the Spanish `el lagarto.' (the lizard). But Shakespeare twisted even 
that, by switching the position of the consonant "r", and possibly 
changing the pronunciation of the "a." 
     So it's clear that many "coined words" had been used (in some 
form) by others in the course of their geographical/timely 
meanderings – just not always in the same functional category or the 
original language group. `And 'semantic shift' -- simply using a word 
in a metaphorical or unusual sense, without it becoming commonplace, 
is hardly grounds for deeming it a coinage.

Scott Nelson

--- In lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com, Fred Shapiro 
<fred.shapiro at ...> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 20 May 2007, Fritz Goerling wrote:
> 
> > You seem to be quite knowledgeable about Shakespeare, so the 
following
> > information about the bard's influence on the English language 
might not be
> > new to you but to others on the list.
> >
> > http://shakespeare.about.com/library/weekly/aa042400a.htm
> 
> People who compile these lists of thousands of words "coined" by 
> Shakespeare may be knowledgeable about Shakespeare, but are not too 
> knowledgeable about historical lexicography.  The vast majority of 
the 
> words on this list and similar ones were not introduced by 
Shakespeare. 
> Because the first edition of the OED read Shakespeare more 
carefully than 
> it did anyone else, and because the first edition of the OED lacked 
the 
> powerful online tools and scholarly editions now available to 
> lexicographers, Shakespeare's coinages were greatly exaggerated.  
The 
> currently ongoing revision of the OED is finding, for probably 90% 
of the 
> words on the Shakespeare-coinage lists, earlier examples by other 
authors.
> 
> Fred Shapiro
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
------
> Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
> Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE BOOK OF QUOTATIONS
>    Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press
> Yale Law School                             ISBN 0300107986
> e-mail: fred.shapiro at ...               
http://quotationdictionary.com
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
------
>

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