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1500-2000 = 500 years
OTHER ENGLISH WORD MAKERS
Gathered by Dr. ALEC GILL MBE
Other English authors followed in Shakespeare's word-making footsteps
- but not to the same vast extent.
- MORE: Sir Thomas (1478-1535)
absurdity /
acceptance /
exact /
exaggerate /
explain /
intrepid /
utopia
- ELLIOT: Sir Thomas (1490-1546)
animate /
exhaust /
modesty
- JOHNSON: Ben (1573-1637)
clumsy /
damp /
defunct /
strenuous
- HOBBES: Thomas (1588-1679)
his deathbed words were: 'a great leap into the dark'.
- BROWNE: Sir Thomas (1605-82)
antediluvian /
hallucination /
precarious
- MILTON: John (1608-74)
gloom /
pandemonium /
PHRASES: darkness visible /
dim religious light /
fresh woods and pastures new
(perhaps misquoted). Some see Milton's writing as a Pinnacle of Perfection.
- GRAY: Thomas (1716-71) (Elegy) knell /
lea
- BURKE: Edmund (1729-97) colonial /
electioneer /
municipality
- BENTHAM: Jeremy (1748-1832)
international (he apologized for its inelegance) /
maximize /
minimize /
utilitarian
- SCOTT: Sir Walter (1771-1832)
freelance /
glamour /
gruesome /
Norseman /
red-handed /
uncanny /
passage of arms
- COLERIDGE: Samuel Taylor (1772-1834) homesick (translated from
German)
- SHELLEY: Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)
(Ode to a Skylark) blithe / hail
- CARLYLE: Thomas (1795-1881)
decadent /
environment /
feckless (from Scotland) /
a bolt
from the blue
- MACAULEY: Thomas Babington 1st. Baron (1800-1859)
constituency /
influential
- SPENCER: Herbert (1820-1903)
blatant /
elfin (maybe?) /
rosy-fingered (dawn)
- HUXLEY: Thomas Henry (1825-95)
agnostic
- GALTON: Francis (1822-1911)
eugenics
- SHAW: George Bernard (1856-1950) superman
- ORWELL: George (1903-50)
Big Brother /
double think / Room 101
ASIDE: One of the problems / joys of English is that spellings can remain the SAME,
but MEANINGS change. Even English speakers can be surprised at how quickly meanings change
over time:
Charles DICKENS (1812-70) wrote in Bleak House how "Sir
Leicester leans back in his chair, and breathlessly ejaculates".
on the other hand (!)
Thomas HARDY (1840-1928) wrote in The Mayor of Casterbridge how one of the
characters gazed upon "the unattractive exterior of Farfrae's erection".
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