Good Will Shakespeare

Whenever one mentions the name “William Shakespeare,” many different thoughts flood throughout many different minds. Some roll their eyes; some openly praise him; some utter the word “overrated”; some do not care. No matter who you are, though, or what you think about his work, one cannot deny his brilliance. It is obvious that Shakespeare changed the game for literature, theatre, and writing, but what most people do not realize is how much his work impacted the English language as a whole. True, there are people who read Romeo and Juliet and/or Julius Caesar in high school that do not care about his achievements, and might even find them overvalued; however, no one can escape his contributions. Why is this?

Well, Shakespeare had knowledge of seven different languages, and had an estimated vocabulary of about 24,000 words; a truly staggering amount. This background allowed for him to invent new words for the English language-- over 1,700 to be exact-- and also to flesh out our language in more ways than one. In many ways, these words are his most underrated works. Below are some of the most popular (I copied and pasted the word list from William Shakespeare: His Influence in the English Language):

Eyeball, moonbeam (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Puking (As You Like It)
Obscene, new-fangled (Love’s Labour’s Lost)
Cold-blooded, savagery (King John)
Hot blooded, epileptic (King Lear)
Addiction (Othello)
Arch-villain (Timon of Athens)
Assassination, unreal (Macbeth)
Bedazzled, pedant (The Taming of the Shrew)
Belongings (Measure for Measure)
Dishearten, swagger, dawn (Henry V)
Eventful, marketable (As You Like It)
Fashionable (Troilus and Cressida)
Inaudible (All’s Well That Ends Well)
Ladybird, uncomfortable (Romeo and Juliet)
Manager, mimic (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Pageantry (Pericles)
Scuffle (Antony and Cleopatra)
Bloodstained (Titus Andronicus)
Negotiate (Much Ado About Nothing)
Outbreak (Hamlet)
Jaded, torture (King Henry VI)
Grovel (Henry IV)
Gnarled (Measure for Measure)

Which are your favorites?