Shakespeare's Contribution to the English Language

I'm not sure we'll ever be able to rationalize or explain the prodigious talent of Shakespeare (or whoever he may have been).  But in case you may be thinking that reports of his genius and influence on culture/literature/language are exaggerated, I offer the following post as proof to the contrary.

By the way, if you find this post to be of interest, you may also wish to check out my compilation of Shakespeare Trivia.

1. Shakespeare wrote 37 plays in approximately 21 years
2. His vocabulary, as culled from his works, numbers upward of 17,000 words
1. Average citizens of England in Shakespeare's day possessed a vocabulary of ~500 words
2. Today's most celebrated poets/authors typically utilize a vocabulary of 7,500 words
3. Of the 17,000 words included in his texts, 1,700 were first used by Shakespeare
1. Some of the 1,700 words that Shakespeare invented that are still in common usage today: academe, accommodation, accused, addiction, advertising, aerial, amazement, apostrophe, arouse, assassination, auspicious, backing, bandit, barefaced, baseless, bedroom, beached, besmirch, bet, birthplace, blanket, bloodstained, bloody, blushing, bump, buzzer, caked, castigate, cater, champion, circumstantial, clangor, cold-blooded, compromise, control (noun), countless, courtship, countless, critic, critical, dauntless, dawn, deafening, dexterously, discontent, dishearten, dislocate, drugged, dwindle, epileptic, equivocal, elbow, excitement, exposure, eventful, eyeball, fashionable, fitful, fixture, flawed, frugal, generous, gloomy, gnarled, gossip, green-eyed, grovel, gust, hint, hobnob, hurried, impede, impartial, inauspicious, indistinguishable, invulnerable, jaded, label, lackluster, lapse, laughable, lonely, lower, luggage, lustrous, madcap, majestic, marketable, metamorphize, mimic, misplaced, monumental, moonbeam, mountaineer, multituinous, negotiate, noiseless, obscene, obsequiously, ode, olympian, outbreak, panders, pedant, perusal, pious, premeditated, puking, radiance, rant, reliance, remorseless, road, sanctimonious, savagery, scuffle, seamy, secure, skim milk, sportive, submerge, summit, suspicious, swagger, torture, tranquil, undress, unreal, varied, vaulting, worthless, zany
2. Shakespeare is credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with the introduction of nearly 3,000 words into the language.
3. Words Shakespeare invented but that have not entered common usage: affined, attasked, cadent, to beetle, bubukles, co-marts, co-mates, congreeing, conspectuities, crants, credent, dispunge, enactures, fracted, germins, immoment, impair, incarnadine, incorpsed, indigest, intrenchant, irregulous, jointing, mered, mirable, mistempered, operant, oppugnancy, palmy, out-crafted, out-villained, out-tongued, plantage, primogenitive, primy, propugnation, relume, reprobance, rigol, rooky, roted, rubious, smilets, to stell, stelled, supplyment, unsisting, virgined (held securely)
4. 8,598 of the words in Shakespeare's texts appear only once.  (Scholars refer to these as 'nonce words'.)
5. Some of the most common techniques Shakespeare employed in creating new words:
1. changing nouns into verbs
2. changing verbs into adjectives
3. connecting words never before used together
4. adding prefixes and suffixes
5. devising words wholly original.
6. The most commonly occuring words in Shakespeare's writings include (in order): the, and, I, to, of, a, you, my, that, in, is, not, with, s', for, it, me, his, be, he
7. Some of the most commonly occurring words in Shakespeare's texts that are not in common usage today: anon, art, dost/doth, ere, fain, fie, hark, hence, hie, hither/thither, hath, ho, mark, marry, pray/prithee, saucy, sirrah, thee/thou/thy, whence, wherefore
8. Shakespeare uses double negatives in spots and phrases such as "most unkindest" with regularity
9. He often used verbs that do not agree with their subjects
10. He often altered the structure of sentences (subject/predicate)
11. He also invented many phrases that are still in common usage today:
1. All one to me
2. all our yesterdays
3. as good luck would have it
4. as merry as the day is long
5. as pure as driven snow
6. bated breath
7. bag and baggage
8. be all and end all
9. beast with two backs
10. brave new world
11. break the ice
12. breathed his last
13. catch a cold
14. come what may
15. crack of doom
16. dash to pieces
17. dead as a doornail
18. devil incarnate
19. disgraceful conduct
20. dish fit for the gods
21. eaten me out of house and home
22. elbow room
23. even at the turning of the tide
24. faint-hearted
25. fair play
26. fancy-free
27. fight fire with fire
28. flaming youth
29. for goodness' sake
30. foregone conclusion
31. forever and a day
32. foul play
33. full circle
34. the game is afoot
35. the game is up
36. give the devil his due
37. good men and true
38. good riddance
39. green eyed monster
40. heart of gold
41. heartsick
42. heart's content
43. her infinite variety
44. high time
45. hoisted with his own petard
46. hot-blooded
47. housekeeping
48. in my mind's eye
49. in stitches
50. in the twinkling of an eye
51. infinite space
52. it smells to heaven
53. itching palms
54. kill with kindness
55. killing frost
56. knock, knock! who's there?
57. laid on with a trowel
58. lean and hungry look
59. leapfrog
60. lie low
61. like the dickens
62. live long day
63. long-haired
64. make short shrift
65. make your hair stand on end
66. melted into thin air
67. milk of human kindness
68. minds' eye
69. ministering angel
70. more fool you
71. more honored in the breach than in the observance
72. more in sorrow than in anger
73. more sinned against than sinning
74. much ado about nothing
75. murder most foul
76. my salad days
77. neither rhyme nor reason
78. night owl
79. not slept one wink
80. obvious as a nose on a man's face
81. off with his head
82. once more into the breach
83. one fell swoop
84. one that loved not wisely but too well
85. out of the jaws of death
86. own flesh and blood
87. pitched battle
88. pomp and circumstance
89. pound of flesh
90. primrose path
91. refuse to budge an inch
92. rhyme nor reason
93. salad days
94. sea change
95. seen better days
96. send him packing
97. set my teeth on edge
98. shall I compare thee to a summer's day
99. the short and long of it
100. short shrift
101. sick at heart
102. shuffle off this mortal coil
103. snail-paced
104. something in the wind
105. a sorry sight
106. sound and fury
107. spotless reputation
108. stony hearted
109. star-crossed lovers
110. strange bedfellows
111. such stuff as dreams are made of
112. sweets to the sweet
113. swift as a shadow
114. the milk of human kindness
115. the Queen's English
116. thereby hangs a tale
117. there's no such thing
118. there's the rub
119. this mortal coil
120. too much of a good thing
121. tower of strength
122. towering passion
123. towering passion
124. up in arms
125. vanish into thin air
126. wear one's heart on one's sleeve
127. what a piece of work
128. what the dickens
129. wild goose chase
130. witching hour
131. witching time of night
132. woe is me
133. yoeman's service
12. Shakespeare also invented many "bon mots" which are still in common usage today. Here are some of the most well known:
1. a plague on both your houses
2. all's well that ends well
3. better a witty fool than a foolish wit
4. brevity is the soul of wit
5. every dog will have his day
6. clothes make the man
7. conscious does make cowards of us all
8. discretion is the better part of valor
9. frailty, thy name is woman
10. how sharper than the serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child
11. I will wear my heart upon my sleve
12. it's an ill wind which blows no man to good
13. jealousy is the green-eyed monster
14. love is blind
15. make a virtue of necessity
16. misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows
17. neither a borrower nor a lender be
18. nothing in his life became him like the leaving it
19. parting is such sweet sorrow
20. smooth runs the water where the brook is deep (aka "still waters run deep")
21. something wicked this way comes
22. the better part of valour is discretion
23. the course of true love never did run true
24. the lady doth protest too much
25. the quality of mercy is not strained
26. the world's my oyster
27. though this be madness, yet there is method in it ("there's a method to my madness")
28. to thine own self be true
29. truth will out
30. what fools these mortals be
31. what's done is done
32. what's in a name?
33. what's past is prologue
34. wish is father to that thought
13. Some famous quotes from Shakespeare's texts:
1. A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. (As You Like It)
2. A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse! (Richard III)
3. A plague on both your houses! (Romeo & Juliet)
4. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (Romeo & Juliet)
5. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety, (Antony & Cleopatra)
6. Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio (Hamlet)
7. All that glitters is not gold. (Merchant of Venice)
8. All the world's a stage, and all the men and women mere players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts. (As You Like It)
9. Beware the ides of March! (Julius Caesar)
10. Screw your courage to the sticking-place. (Henry V)
11. Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. (Julius Caesar)
12. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war! (Julius Caesar)
13. Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble! (Macbeth)
14. Et tu, Brute? (Julius Caesar)
15. Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog (Macbeth)
16. Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man! (King Lear)
17. Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears! (Julius Caesar)
18. Goodnight, goodnight! Parting is such sweet sorrow! (Romeo & Juliet)
19. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips. (Henry V)
20. If music be the food of love, play on! (Twelfth Night)
21. If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? (Merchant of Venice)
22. Is this a dagger which I see before me? (Macbeth)
23. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves. (Julius Caesar)
24. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Macbeth)
25. Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. (All's Well That Ends Well)
26. Now is the winter of our discontent. (Richard III)
27. O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? (Romeo & Juliet)
28. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more! (Henry V)
29. Screw your courage to the sticking place. (Henry V)
30. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. (Sonnet 18)
31. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. (Twelfth Night)
32. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. (Macbeth)
33. The course of true love never did run smooth. (Midsummer Night's Dream)
34. The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. (Julius Caesar)
35. The quality of mercy is not strained. (Merchant of Venice)
36. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.  (Hamlet)
37. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (Hamlet)
38. There's method in my madness. (Hamlet)
39. This precious stone set in the silver sea ... this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. (Richard II)
40. To be or not to be, that is the question. (Hamlet)
41. To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub. (Hamlet)
42. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. (Henry IV, Part II)
43. We are such stuff as dreams are made on (The Tempest)
44. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers (Henry V)
45. What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god. (Hamlet)
46. What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (Romeo & Juliet)
47. Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? (As You Like It)