Shakespeare Didn’t Make up as Many Words as We Think

For the Guardian, Alison Flood writes on the bias of the Oxford English Dictionary towards “famous literary examples” instead of the actual origin, resulting in the incorrect attribution of several still-used words and phrases to Shakespeare. Flood writes that there are multitudes of evidence showing earlier usages of phrases such as “wild goose chase” and “it’s Greek to me,” citing Shakespearean scholar Dr. David McInnis of the University of Melbourne. Shakespeare, according to McInnis, was less talented at creating new words as he was at making words and phrases famous and “memorable.”