Shakespeare's "new" words

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

The "12th Night" speech is I think Malvolio's; if so, S meant the weird diction to be malapropisms and nonsense words, Mal. being a pretentious idiot. This would mean that S did not intend them as new words at all. Of course, that doesn't mean that the audience couldn't have picked up  on "hob nob" anyway. But Malvolio seems to be using them as a pretentious filler and not in the sense now found in dictionaries.

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 re:


a1616    Shakespeare Twelfth Night (1623) iii. iv. 234   His
incensement‥is so implacable, that satisfaction can be none, but by
pangs of death and sepulcher: Hob, nob, is his word: giu't or take't.

The Yahoo news story credits Shakespeare with coining hob nob.

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