Stop saying Shakespeare invented so many phrases - he cribbed most of them, Australian academic claims
An Australian expert on
Shakespeare claims the bard did not invent many of the words and phrases
attributed to him, saying the mistake is due to the Oxford English
Dictionary’s “bias” towards citing literary examples of early usages.
Noting examples such as “it was Greek to me” and “wild goose chase”, Dr David McInnis, from Melbourne University, said online searches of old texts had helped to uncover pre-Shakespeare uses for many words and phrases that are frequently credited to him.
“Did Shakespeare really invent all these words and phrases?” he wrote in an article for the university’s online magazine.
“The short answer is no. His audiences had to understand at least the gist of what he meant, so his words were mostly in circulation already or were logical combinations of pre-existing concepts.”
Noting examples such as “it was Greek to me” and “wild goose chase”, Dr David McInnis, from Melbourne University, said online searches of old texts had helped to uncover pre-Shakespeare uses for many words and phrases that are frequently credited to him.
“Did Shakespeare really invent all these words and phrases?” he wrote in an article for the university’s online magazine.
“The short answer is no. His audiences had to understand at least the gist of what he meant, so his words were mostly in circulation already or were logical combinations of pre-existing concepts.”
Dr McInnis, a lecturer in
Shakespeare studies, said the Oxford English Dictionary contains more
than 33,000 quotations from Shakespeare, including about 1,500 listed
as the first evidence of a word’s existence. A further 7,500 are listed
as the first evidence of a particular usage or meaning.
“But the OED is biased,” Dr McInnis wrote.
“Especially in the early days, it preferred literary examples, and famous ones at that. The Complete Works of Shakespeare was frequently raided for early examples of word use, even though words or phrases might have been used earlier, by less famous or less literary people.”
According to Dr McInnis, the phrase “it’s Greek to me” is often thought to derive from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, which is believed to have been written in 1599. But internet-based resources have helped to uncover at least one earlier use.
“Now, thanks to digital resources like Early English Books Online, we can search for the phrase ‘Greek to me’ and easily find examples that predate Shakespeare,” Dr McInnis said.
“But the OED is biased,” Dr McInnis wrote.
“Especially in the early days, it preferred literary examples, and famous ones at that. The Complete Works of Shakespeare was frequently raided for early examples of word use, even though words or phrases might have been used earlier, by less famous or less literary people.”
According to Dr McInnis, the phrase “it’s Greek to me” is often thought to derive from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, which is believed to have been written in 1599. But internet-based resources have helped to uncover at least one earlier use.
“Now, thanks to digital resources like Early English Books Online, we can search for the phrase ‘Greek to me’ and easily find examples that predate Shakespeare,” Dr McInnis said.
Likewise, the phrase “wild goose chase” has been shown to pre-date Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: it apparently appears at least six times in a 1593 book about horsemanship by the English poet Gervase Markham. Internet searches have also revealed a use for “eaten out of house and home” that predates Henry IV, Part 2.
However, Dr McInnis noted that Shakespeare sometimes appears to have refashioned existing phrases - such as “the better part of valour is discretion” - to make them “concise and catchy”.
And, in other cases, such as “to make an ass of oneself”, Shakespeare “seems to have genuinely invented [it]”, Dr McInnis wrote.
“So did Shakespeare really invent all those words?” he asked.
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