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Did Shakespeare invent as many words as people claim?

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Onan at work Comment from : @zenocitium

The origins of the phrase "Conspiracy Theory" used a pejorative to discredit others without addressing the claim or point being made would be a good topic for a video When was it first used and by whom? Comment from : @joecaner

I did not know people were attributing 1700 words to him The highest number I had seen was 200? Comment from : @Rocketboy1313

I remember in middle school someone in my class thought Shakespear invented English Comment from : @devingraves8044

I do have to assume that a fair amount of the words Shakespeare "invented" were either in common usage, or would at least have been intuitive enough for his audience to understand Otherwise people wouldn't have been able to understand them Comment from : @FTZPLTC

considering Bill's spelling maybe you should call hium Shaggy Comment from : @geoffchurchill5492

Sorry in my comment please read until "DAWNING" instead of until dawn @14:16 Comment from : @mearalain3006

The anglo-noman islands have shelthered this man who write in french about your (his, should we say) Shakespeare, I mean Victor Hugo This book is a "must read" I have read it straight from say 6 pm until dawn He (Hugo) is one of the promoter of the renewal of Shakespeare's perfomrmances as well as studies in our respective countries Comment from : @mearalain3006

The real joke is, did Shakespeare actually write any of it, dig in just a little and it will not fit Comment from : @malachi-

Shakespeare doesn't seem to me to be an idiot He wouldn't invent words no one understood, he might create fantastic idioms, but he wrote for the masses It's the equivalent of saying Johnson invented a bunch of words because he was the first to write them down, or that NME created Krautrock Comment from : @AndrewLakeUK

That's not a conspiracy theory A conspiracy theory is that although he authored all of these pieces, he was part of a committee formed explicitly to guide the course of the language Comment from : @AntonSlavik

William Shakespeare, actor at the Globe Theater, died in 1616 Question - First Folio 1623 and Second Folio 1632, 10 years and 20 years of whose death? brTurn on your brains and immediately find out the name of Shakespeare and the dark lady from the sonnets and at the same time brWilliam Pembroke - whose relative? to whom the sonnets and the first volume of 1623 are dedicated Comment from : @Пётр-00д6х1

'I'll gossip at this feast" is also a pun on "I'll go sip (or sup) at this feast" Comment from : @keithrhodes7386

It's worth remembering that when people say that Shakespeare "invented' these words, what they actually mean is that their earliest known written appearance is in a Shakespeare play That obviously doesn't mean that the word didn't exist before Shakespeare wrote it down Comment from : @dunebasher1971

But Hermia sounds so snuggly I really want to snuggle up with her Comment from : @BritishBeachcomber

And when I try to use a word in a different way or invent a new word I'm told it's wrong, yet Shakespeare is praised for it Comment from : @maythesciencebewithyou

The truth will out! Comment from : @kylanwilson2754

Purile pedantry Beware of egos greater than their capacity to analyze Comment from : @stevebecker2486

Rob is so interesting, knowledgeable and charming Comment from : @zyxw2000

Re: the first few sentences Am I being lied to, or are some sources incorrect? Not the same Comment from : @zyxw2000

Am I being lied to, or are some sources incorrect? There's a difference Comment from : @zyxw2000

Another Shakespeare phrase is "give up the ghost" - spoken towards the end of Julius Caesar by Cassius Comment from : @CoiledMoons

Quite brilliant Rob Informative and hugely entertaining ❤ Comment from : @iainhunneybell

This video with all those interweaved Shakespearian citations is pure poetry, a piece of art! (Producing all these outstanding and brilliantly witty videos the author is evidently not only a highly intelligent linguist but also a gifted actor/entertainer as well Looking forward to the next video) Rudi H Comment from : @廓然無聖

What if William Shakespeare is the Elizabetan version of William Smithee? Comment from : @Thkaal

Responding to the title cold: Its not so much that Shakespeare 'invents' words, as it is that his text is often the first time many words appear in print/script Comment from : @DJTheTrainmanWalker

I think the whole coinage debate is kind of a canard What it doesn't take into account is that in the 18th and particularly the 19th centuries, Shakespeare was incredibly popular all over the English-speaking world, and even uneducated people were given to peppering their speech with Shakespearean phrases, to the point that many of those phrases are still current today though most people don't know their origin Wild goose chase, break the ice, good riddance, laughing stock, wear your heart on your sleeve, and so many more That's a far greater testament to Shakespeare's longevity as an artist than a mere wordcount, the fact that his specific turns of phrase are in the very DNA of English and thus helped create the language we speak today Comment from : @valmarsiglia

Unbelievable that anyone thinks Marlowe wrote Shakespeare Obviously they've never really read either Comment from : @valmarsiglia

I think that some people, in their enthusiasm for WS, conflate words popularized by him and those actually coined by him Comment from : @valmarsiglia

Fantastic Video :) Comment from : @jonkayl9416

2:54 speak for yourself, eh? say no more, say no more Comment from : @hysterikole1

Chaucer used kiss in “The Miller’s Tale”: “Thanne kysse me, syn it may be no bet” (608) He uses it again a few lines later, but I abstained from including that one 😂 (If you know, you know) This predates Shakespeare by a couple hundred yearsbrbrI love your channel so much!!!!!❤❤❤ Comment from : @NemoMeImpuneLacessitNevermore

Rob, do the whole video in “that” voice I’d love an April Fool’s episode all about an accent of British English that doesn’t exist Comment from : @joelsmith5938

Writers lazily say "first occurrence of X" when they really should say "earliest known example of X" Comment from : @Tmanaz480

A video on John Florio is overdue!!! There is a fascinating link between Italian and English…… Comment from : @davidforbes2795

Over the years I have read and listened to many arguments that the William Shakespeare of Stratford did not have the education or access to large libraries necessary to have allowed him to write those plays and poems, so they must have been written by some nobleman with a university education But there is no evidence that any other person of that era did in fact demonstrate the genius we find in these works, so there is only one inescapable conclusion: that NO ONE wrote the works of Shakespeare! Comment from : @MrZviswerd

4:00 Hi Rob, I want to give you some feedback This is a straw man argument None of the screenshots you have on screen are from serious sources claiming the word bedroom was invented by Shakespeare br br1 "Shakespeare Words - Bedroom" -- This page is not a serious academic source ("Shmoop expressly disclaims the accuracy, reliability, legality, or completeness of the information within Shmoop") The page is form generated with the word "Invented in " because, like you yourself conclude at the end of this video, many or most words with first known usage in Shakespeare's plays were invented by him No reasonable person should mistake the poor word choice in a blog template as a serious claim he actually invented all the words in those posts br br2 "Guest Post: 8 Words You’ll Never Believe Shakespeare Invented!" -- This blog post acknowledges, as you pointed out, that this first usage means "space in your bed" and doesn't seem to have the modern usage No reasonable person is going to come away with the misimpression from this source alone that Shakespeare invented the modern usage br br3 I can't find this one, but it looks like it's from a dictionary Many dictionaries have terse etymology notes that may not carry much nuance or even be accurate Until I can find it, and check for any context, it's difficult to say But the screenshot doesn't contain any indication that the word was invented by Shakespeare It's consistent with presenting merely a first known occurrence br br4 "7 Words Created By Shakespeare" -- This page provides appropriate qualifiers eg "These are widely attributed to Shakespeare However, word origins with a long history of usage can rarely be 100 confirmed" and also "were more likely to be called" bedchambers which is correct, as opposed to "only ever called" or some other exaggeration Notice this page cites as its source the first one from Shmoop Its author may indeed have been confused about the meaning of this first known usage of bedroom and made a sloppy inference based on the word "invented" That's possible! So I sent Alisan Keesee an email asking her to clarify I'll let you know if she respondsbrbrAnyone besides Rob, please keep your opinion to yourself I don't want to argue with you I just want to give my feedback to Rob Thanks Comment from : @PhysicsPolice

Really interesting, revealing, surprising And I love the leaves falling in the background probably not december or january! Comment from : @helenswan705

I heard that shakespeare used a vocabulary of only 4000 words Comment from : @richardmullins44

[3:36] Unless you are Pedro Carolino 😂I just watched the "English as she is spoke" video before this "Shakey's new words" video Your work is absolutely amazing Mr Rob You've earned yourself a new fan all the way from South Africa (Definitely an Exonym; our Endonym is "The Great Southern African Country") 😅🤣 Comment from : @chaddychampu6551

“The most influential cultural figure of all time”brbrWas “_Western_ cultural figure”, or “_secular_ cultural figure” intended to be implied in that statement? Because if not, depending upon how “cultural figure” is defined, I suspect that Jesus, Buddha and/or Confucius may have ol’ “Shaky” beat🤔 Comment from : @DeltaJulietPapa

Just because a guy is not "to the manner born" or highly educated doesn't mean he couldn't have been so prolific Comment from : @tammygross144

Not Shakey but Billy the bard Comment from : @113prema

That list flashed in the screen of words Shakey invented; It seems the internet would be happy to know he brought about "fap" For, without the word, none of us would know a good onomatopoeia for our favorite solo salacious internet usage 😂 Comment from : @lordvlygar2963

6:40 Of course he invented gossip to mean loose talk It had a different meaning to what we now know If not for him gossip may still mean godfather or whatever But after he changed the meaning no one ever talks about gossip meaning any other thing aside what he invented The original meaning has been lost For all intent and purposes, YES he invented gossip Comment from : @emmanuelugwu6646

Wait, translating a word is not inventing it You pointed out how Shakespeare stole words from other languages as a reason why he didn't invent the word, but later in the video reverse and state he invented bandit by stealing it from Spanish Your rational confuses me Comment from : @cantsay

How would anyone understand his plays if so many of the words he used were of his own invention? It seems more likely to me that he didn't invent any words at all I don't even believe that he was the first to write them down It seems more likely to me that his writing was the first saved work to have the words in them So many other plays, literature, and letters diaries were written but not saved for hundreds of years We have no idea what was in lost written sources I'm not trying to take away from the clear talent of Shakespeare The man had skills However, I don't believe he was running around creating so many words that wouldn't be understood by his audience Comment from : @CCL83

Shaky, lol Comment from : @rokess5053

The "in his own hand" thing in anachronistic nonsense We don't have copies of anyone's published work in their own hand from the period (except one work from Jonson) There are some unpublished works that survive Once something was published, no one saw any reason to keep the original handwritten copy No one A lot of Shakespeare's plays were published (quartos) and Condell and Hemmings almost certainly would have had the original handwritten copies of the unpublished plays as they were necessary for the group to keep putting on the plays Again, once they were published in the first quarto, they wouldn't have thought it necessary to keep them Comment from : @inapickle806

I think it's obvious he didn't invent a ton of words as he was writing for an audience and wouldn't have expected them to constantly contextualize brand new words as they watched a play Most of the written works of the period and earlier are lost, so we either just don't have those earlier references, or the OED, etc just defaulted to Shakespeare rather than digging for a more obscure source I do agree he changed the usages, or added suffixes, etc of a lot of known words Comment from : @inapickle806

Potentially having invented 10,000 words out of 20,000 used would be quite the invention To the point one might wonder how his audience might have understood him at allbrbrNow, newly coined bphrases/b I would believe that he came up with many Hundreds, probably Comment from : @andyarken7906

Shakespeare coined the word ‘bedroom’ but he didn’t invent the ‘bedroom’ with its modern definition Comment from : @LyleLylefr

Shakespeare was held to be Francis bacon Although also a court magician who strangely wrote the King James Bible or translated it Life is stranger than art Comment from : @obsessedwithcrypto4366

The myth is better Pass Comment from : @kevinb1350

👍 Comment from : @AgentTrust

Always worth listening to Comment from : @charleshotchkiss1813

"Shakespeare is probably the most influential linguistic figure the world has ever seen" (1755) brbrOnly to people who don't know anything about Marcus Tullius Cicero -- who in terms of sheer linguistic influence blows Shakespeare out of the water #fact Comment from : @JournalPulp

19:06 “school is for dumb people” Rick Sanchez - I think it is a classist idea to think that someone who wasn’t classically trained could come up with something totally different and entertaining Just my opinion, formal education can sniff out creativity very quickly Comment from : @sethelrod9099

Is Rob Words a QI elf? Comment from : @antmancan6408

English uses Latin words to mean totally different things than they meant originally That doesn't mean it's a different word So the bedroom argument doesn't really work Whether the initial meaning of the word is different isn't really the point, I thinkbrbrThat said whether or not the other usages of that word started out from people reading Shakespeare is relevant I see it as people potentially loaning Shakespeare's word, much like you could loan another language So I also agree he might not have invented the word at all, as they might still be two entirely separate words, as you suggestedbrThat however doesn't mean the reason is the initial meaning of the word, as that isn't terribly relevant to whether or not it's the same word Comment from : @myfaceismyshield5963

Watch Upstart Crow Not only is it very funny, but it turns the conspiracy theory on its head by saying that Shakespeare wrote all of Christopher Marlowes plays Brilliant bit of comedy Comment from : @MrRdaniell

I wonder what Shakespeare would sound like if he DIDN'T invent those words, but used normal vocubulary for his time ;) Comment from : @brandbird

Bedroom is a great example, because by claiming it's supposed meaning they kill what is actually poetic about the phrase Comment from : @eastvandb

Shakespeare never existed, it's all a sham by Big Theatre, wake up sheeple! Comment from : @technoman9000

Could he have dictated them to a scribe, who wrote them down? Comment from : @Ladysilver43

Dude you’re so funny, love your videos thank you Comment from : @augustlongpre64

Counterpoint: Shakespeare wouldn't have written things his audience couldn't understand So it could be that he didn't invent some of these words or phrases -- they may have been in common use already, and Shakespeare just provides the earliest example of them in writing Comment from : @charlespkalina4162

Not many could read or write in Shakespeare’s time Being the first to write a word down that’s in common use doesn’t mean you invented it🤔 Comment from : @mikejones-go8vz

I don’t know if “Shakespeare made up lots of words” is a compliment Usually I think a writer is skilled if they make good use of existing wordsbrbrShakespeare liked wordplay I’d say he probably invented far far fewer words than he synthesised from existing elements, popularised or simply attested first Comment from : @azraphon

I want to start a conspiracy theory that Shakespeare never existed All of the plays attributed to him are modern fabrications used by Nasa to distract people from their evil plans to wrap the flat Earth into a burrito Earth Comment from : @halfsourlizard9319

I liken the claim about Shakespeare's new words to other claims about ancient and prehistoric history Such and such a dinosaur was the largest land predator ever but dinosaurs spanned a history of 200 million years and every fossil we have is a million years separate from the next nearest Likewise, The Illiad was the most famous book in ancient Greece Of course, it's one of only a handful that we still have Julius Caesar was one of the best Roman generals of all time Of course, most of them didn't write stories of their own exploits and if they did we don't have copies Perhaps the most fascinating thing about history is how much of it we don't know Comment from : @doctorlolchicken7478

I always think it is cute with the English when they pretend that Shakespeare was a singular historical figure, when there is no grave, and actually no historical evidence that he was a singular person, but could have actually been a conglomerate of poets and or collaboration of actors of the time, and the material can't be sourced directly or indirectly to this supposed historical figurebrbrYou don't have a "Shakespeare's grave" But, like King Arthur and Robin Hoodyou do have a beloved myth You've got kings and suchand think only a singular man is good amongst the rabble and all the talent is embodied by that one person Makes for quite the legend brbrFacts and physical evidence are a bit shy in this regard, on all counts, for all three figures Comment from : @OceanusHelios

that reminds me I have heard from my grandmother some ideas lots before I have find them again in some Aristotle textsbrI think Aristotle copied lots of things from my gramma Comment from : @AfonsoBucco

Because Shakesepere was multiple writers Comment from : @herschelmayo2727

There is no way Shaksper of Stratford wrote “Shakespeare” It did not happen No way Comment from : @georgegrubbs2966

My favorite take on the idea that Shakespeare didn't write his plays is in the epilogue of the book "twisted tales of Shakespeare" by Richard ArmourbrIt's a very funny book which I highly recommend Comment from : @vincegamer

You misspelled "contemporary" in one of your graphics You spelled it "coMtemporary" You may want to re-save a new version of this video with the spelling of that word corrected Comment from : @TravisG-zx4wo

It is either depressing or hilarious how many people don't understand the difference between inventing a word versus having written the earliest known attested case of the word in a surviving text Comment from : @johnrichardson7629

Coining a phrase and inventing a phrase are two different things Comment from : @ChanceTheGardenerrr

Ah, but people make up words all the time When GW Bush said "misunderestimated" and Trump said "bigly," they were dismissed by the grammar nazis When southerners call a stocking cap a "tobaggan" or even "'boggan," they're dismissed as ignorant hillbillies brbrMy own parents often took great relish in mispronouncing or misappropriating words just for fun (Meaning that many people outside the family were often ignorant of the joke)brbr Shakespeare may have made up words, or he may have just been the first to use some colloquialisms in print Comment from : @TurtleTrackin

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