Shakespeare's Contribution to the English Language

While reading "Shakespeare, the world as stage" by Bill Bryson, I came across certain facts or passages that stuck out at me. One such passage was towards the end of the book when Bryson discusses how there are over six hundred words in Shakespeare's plays that were never in existence beforehand. These are words that are integral parts of our vocabulary even still, which is baffling to consider. Some of these words include critical, frugal, extract, dwindle, horrid, vast, excellent, eventful, zany, lonely, and assassination.

Another fact that presented itself during my reading was that Shakespeare redefined english vocabulary when he added un- prefixes to existing words in order to make new ones. These were unprecedented words that no one had thought of before. Some of these words are unmask, unhand, unlock, untie, unveil, and over three hundred other similar creations.

This really stood out to me when I considered I would express myself without Shakespeare's invaluable contributions to the English language.