Re:In the 17th Century, Leibniz Dreamed of a Machine That Co...
by pilsetnieks on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @04:59AM
(#21451040)
I thought it was a misconception that Shakespeare added so much new words - him being a prolific and very popular writer, and with much of his corpus surviving to this day, his works get cited whenever there's a "first use" mentioned somewhere.
The fact that one of his plays is the oldest written source where a word was seen for the first time in written form doesn't mean that it wasn't in common use before that; indeed it could mean the opposite – because the spectators of his plays should be able to understand what the characters are speaking, not leave befuddled in need of translation.
The fact that one of his plays is the oldest written source where a word was seen for the first time in written form doesn't mean that it wasn't in common use before that; indeed it could mean the opposite – because the spectators of his plays should be able to understand what the characters are speaking, not leave befuddled in need of translation.