1149: Did Shakespeare Really Invent 1,700 Words? Jan 31, 2018

Shakespeare certainly had an effect on the way that people use and consider English. He wrote at a time of rapid change within the language—sounds were shifting and vocabulary changed with it—with the result being Modern English, so if he wrote much earlier or later, his contribution would likely be less noticeable. Nevertheless, no matter how much he did or did not do, the number of words that he created is often stated in a way that is misleading. Shakespeare certainly coined many words, but considering the notion that he invented around 1,700 words that are still fairly common, this is not exactly in the same way as Sir Thomas More invented 'Utopia' or how Paracelsus possibly invented 'gnome', because Shakespeare is said to have invented words often by simply adding affixes to words where there hadn't been ones before—which only includes ones that were not found to be written before—or using some parts of speech in a way that was not typical e.g. using what would be a noun as a verb. This is how a word like 'circumstantial' can be linked to Shakespeare when at most he added '-al' in the way it would normally be applied. This is not to say he did not have a lasting impact or an impressive legacy, but that the issue is more nuanced than imagining that The Bard pulled 1,700 words out of thin air which all happened to catch on among the public in a way that no one could have used before him.

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