Did Shakespeare invent as many words as people claim?

William Shakespeare is arguably the most significant cultural figure of all time. But has his contribution to the English language been overstated? Let's find out:
🧐 Did Shakespeare really "invent" 1,700 words?
🎭 Which common phrases did Shakespeare give us?
📚 Is there any truth in claims Shakespeare didn't write his plays?
These question answered and many more in this myth-busting episode of RobWords.

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==CHAPTERS==
0:00 Introduction
0:14 Shakespeare facts
1:20 Words Shakespeare DIDN'T invent
10:29 How many did he invent?
13:36 Words Shakespeare DID invent.
16:24 Phrases from Shakespeare
17:55 Did he write his plays?

[pierrerioux]

A joke I heard (or read) many decades ago went something like: "Oh I read Shakespeare, I don't know why people give him so much credit, he just seems to have strung together a bunch of well known sentences"

[acommon]

Rob always has an expression that looks like he has a bunch of forbidden secrets that he probably shouldn't tell us, but can't help himself sharing anyway. That's probably why he's meeting us in the woods.

[Azeria]

I can’t believe Shakespeare wrote the script for this video 425 years ago just for you Rob

[frizlaw]

Even though Shakespeare's works have become high brow culture, I've often felt that he was really a person who wrote for the common people. His plays were considered popular entertainment in his time, not stuffy and sophisticated as they are sometimes presented these days. With that in mind, I've often thought that given his unremarkable upbringing and education, he probably used words and expressions that he heard around him, so many of the new words that appear in print for the first time may well have been in common use when he was writing and so he really didn't invent a lot of these words, he simply was the first, or among the first, to put them to paper.

[cherenkov_blue]

For some reason my brain came up with the phrase "Cambrian explosion of English" to describe the Elizabethan Era and I love it

[randysandford]

As an American who grew up in the 60s, I love Shakespeare to this day. Doubtless as a fan, I made the pilgrimage to Stratford-Upon-Avon. The whole town is a monument to their native son. It was an exhilarating experience. When I read his works they lift my mind up to a place few other text, except the Bible, are able to do. This was a very, very enlightening post. Thanks so much.

[Keenath]

The thing I've heard a lot of lately is that as English as a whole was rapidly evolving during that period, many of Shakespeare's new words are more likely words that had started being used by young people of the era than actually being invented by him. Or in other words, that Shakespeare was using contemporary slang in his plays and happens to be the first person to have recorded them.

[wes]

I wonder how many of the words Shakespeare lengthened or shortened, were changed to fit the cadence. Where “dawning” didn’t scan, maybe “dawn” did.

[andrewclifton]

Chaucer used the word "kisses", way back in the late 14th century. "Thus in this heaven he took his delight And smothered her with kisses upon kisses / Till gradually he came to know where bliss is." (from Troilus and Criseyde). Sounds like there was already a lot of kissing going on, in those days!

[scptcL]

Thank you for the time you put into researching, editing and presenting these masterpieces. I also appreciate your flair for humour and engagement.

[JF-xwef]

So his use of “bedroom” was possibly a pun.

[potholer]

Great video, but.... You correctly say at 4:00 that Shakespeare is the first 'quoted' as using a word, but then you drop the word 'quoted' and say he was the first person to use these words. That is very unlikely. Hundreds of years from now, scholars will find the word 'selfie' in a 2003 script, and assume the author invented it because this is the first time they saw it in print. In fact, the word 'swlfie' was in common usage a year earlier.
We simply don't know if words like 'devote' and 'denote' were used in spoken English around London before Shakespeare put them in his scripts. He certainly played with words and adapted them, but Shakespeare's plays would have been incomprehensible if he constantly 'invented' new words that his audiences had never heard before.

[linpulver]

You must have worked so hard to produce this. Thank you.

[briandhackney]

I just heard that Shakespeare created 1700 words like 3 days ago so I watched like 5 videos in a row on it, words like elbow. And I thought to myself that makes no sense because how would the audience know what he was talking about if he is just manufactuuring words out of thin air. So I tried to redearch what the english word for comfortable was in the 1400's, another word I had heard he invented, because I figured it couldn't be to far off from comfortable if people were going to undsrstand him. Unfortunately, google and several dictionaries had no searchable results for my query. I am so happy you made this video to answer my question in such a timely manner. I give you all my thanks!

[filioque]

My American ears can't distinguish when Rob is speaking normally and when he's doing an Early Modern English accent. Haha!

[HH-mriq]

Rob, you are always a delight. Your editing and jokes make my day! Very well done video.

[ethanandelinayu]

2:55 when you buy a bigger bed, you have more bedroom but less bedroom
Edit1: the sigma are y'all doin
Edit2: I just want to clarify I got this from somewhere else

[TheYorkRose]

This is the definitive video on Shakespeare for me, and I'm saying that not as a diehard subscriber who has followed you on here for years or anything.

Well written and explained and presented, much appreciated. Thanks Rob.

[larswillems]

As a Dutchie, I was surprised when you said that "to rant" is from Dutch. I looked op "ranten" and it is not in the Van Dale online dictionary. We should use it again

[snarky_user]

It's completely unfuckingfair that Shakespeare gets credit for making up words a half-milleneum ago, while I only get SCRABBLE challenges when I do it!