Words, Glorious, Beautiful Words! -Shakespeare’s Revolution

Accused Champion Bandit Varied Premeditated Assassination in the Bedroom, under the Blanket.

Want to know what is so special about that sentence, apart from its obvious lack of sense?

Each word with a capital letter did not exist prior to 1564. In fact, over 1700 words had never been uttered until 1564 rolled around. Hands up then, if you’re aware of what happened in 1564.

Baptized (birth date unknown) on the 26th of April, 1564, William Shakespeare made his entrance in to the heady, unfettered creativity of the youthful Elizabethan world. Easily the world’s most influential and popular playwright, Shakespeare is the mastermind behind those 1700 words that I mentioned. In fact, the author of Henry V and approximately 37 other plays, 154 sonnets, and a myriad of other poems, is responsible for a multitude of phrases as well.

‘All that glitters is not gold’, ‘all’s well that ends well’, ‘in a pickle’ and ‘parting is such sweet sorrow’ all came from the golden pen of Shakespeare.

So it comes as a sadness to realize that countless generations of authors are being herded to follow a strict set of guidelines, instead of branching out and creating words that do describe everything. So many times people are found floundering to describe a scene, or a feeling, and it is because in the minds of some, what we have is enough.

Words like ‘fitted’ stumble off the tongue, in an attempt to adhere to these guidelines. Personally, I have long since stopped using that word, and when anyone needs to fit in to a corner, I see that they have ‘fat’ themselves there comfortably. And what of the poor sheep in our world, who have been robbed of a singular or plural term to describe themselves. Once again, I have set out as a pioneer to make popular the use of ‘shoop’, for all those single sheep!

Creativity should not be left to run loose and create mayhem and havoc throughout the world, but it should be allowed a small amount of room to move. Will Shakespeare would have wanted it that way.

Posted by Josh Hill

http://www.pathguy.com/shakeswo.htm
http://piksels.com/19/words-invented-by-shakespeare/
http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/shakespeare_words_phrases.htm