Word Play: The inventions of Shakespeare

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, May 10th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next, WORLD commentator George Grant with Word Play for May.

GEORGE GRANT: You may not realize it but there is a very good chance that you often use words and phrases invented by William Shakespeare. Even if you’ve never read a page of his Sonnets or seen a theatrical performance of one of his plays, he has likely left an indelible mark on your vocabulary. Writing more than 400 years ago, Shakespeare played a significant role in the formation of modern English. Scholars have identified more than 1700 words minted and first deployed by the Bard. They range from the erudite and poetic to the utilitarian and banal. At least 400 have become a part of our common parlance, from “addiction,” “bedroom,” “cheap,” and “dewdrop,” to “vulnerable,” “watchdog,” “yelp,” and “zany.”

But where Shakespeare’s mastery of language is perhaps most evident is in his clever creation of memorable catchphrases, epigrams, and maxims. His witticisms, saws, and aphorisms now pepper our conversations as useful cliches.

In his play Macbeth he gave us, “the be-all and the end-all”: “milk of human kindness,” “one fell swoop,” “what’s done is done,” “something wicked this way comes,” and “Knock knock! Who’s there?” From Hamlet we get, “brevity is the soul of wit,” “neither a borrower nor a lender be,” “hoist by his own petard,” “to thine own self be true,” “the clothes make the man,” and “my own flesh and blood.” From The Taming of the Shrew we get, “break the ice,” “cold comfort,” “all of a sudden,” “a killing kindness,” and “refuse to budge an inch.”

Othello gave us, “jealousy is a green-eyed monster,” “vanish into thin air,” and “wear my heart upon my sleeve.” From The Merry Wives of Windsor we get, “the world is my oyster,” “he’s a laughingstock,” and “as good luck would have it.” Henry VI gave us, “mum’s the word,” “faint hearted,” and “dead as a doornail,” while The Tempest gave us “brave new world” and “melted into thin air.” Not surprisingly, Romeo and Juliet gave us “wild-goose chase” and “star-crossed lovers.”

Guy Williams, a columnist for the Omaha World Herald, once related that he gave a volume of Shakespeare’s plays to an acquaintance. After perusing the book she complained, “I can’t understand why anyone makes such a fuss over that man. All he’s done is string together a whole lot of very old, well-known cliches.” Indeed, he did.

I’m George Grant.

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