People tend to equate the creation of words with ingenuity and hard work.
If you think really, really hard,
you set your mind to it and you come up with a great idea for a word,
especially if the word for which is a need in the language.
One day, your special creation can grow up and be in a real dictionary.
Coming up on Word Matters, how William Shakespeare influenced the English language.
I'm Emily Brewster, and Word Matters is a new podcast from Merriam-Webster,
produced in collaboration with New England Public Media.
On each episode, Merriam-Webster editors Neil Servin, Amon Shea, Peter Sakalowski,
and I explore some aspect of the English language from the dictionary's vantage point.
Ah, the immortal bard.
No discussion of classic English literature is complete without mentioning William Shakespeare.
His influence is undeniable.
But did Shakespeare actually invent the thousands of words often credited to him?
Here's Amon Shea with the real story of Shakespeare's creations.
One of the most... if not the most beloved writers in English is, of course, William Shakespeare.
And one of the things that people love to know about him, so to speak,
is that he single-handedly created an enormous portion of the English language.
And the only problem with this, of course, is that it is not at all true.
But you're telling me he didn't coin all those words?