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English, According to View of Shakespeare
While
certainly noted for his rhythm, meter, and themes, perhaps Shakespeare’s
strongest influence on the English language was his diction. Scholars estimate
that Shakespeare used at least 20,000 words in his work overall, and that he
coined about 1,700 of those words. While many scholars are quick to point out
that Shakespeare’s contribution to diction in this respect is commonly
misunderstood—as some of his words and phrases may have simply been products of
the time—it’s undeniable that Shakespeare maintained a degree of linguistic
variety and innovation unmatched by his peers. Thus, he is credited with
coining, or at least popularizing, many words and phrases we still use today.
Take a look at a selection of these popular terms and their sources.
Ø “All
the world’s a stage”
Ø “Let
slip the dogs of war”
Ø “Double,
double toil and trouble”
Ø “Fashionable”
Ø “For
goodness’ sake”
Ø “In
my heart of heart”
Ø “Knock
knock! Who’s there?”
Ø “Livelong
day”
Ø “Seen
better days”
Ø “Wear
my heart upon my sleeve”
Ø “Jealousy
is the green-eyed monster”
Ø “Be-all and the end-all”
If we ponder over the above phrases we can see that
these are familier to us , and we can say that these all were invention of
Shakespeare because these phrases were used by him firstly in his story or
novel like Hemlet and some drama scripted by him, which denotes the dominance
of Shakespeare over English language and as a subject too.
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