Neologism

Hey Steph!
       Be prepared to journey down a long linguistic tunnel with me. I've been making myself focus on my master's thesis this past month, and I've been carried deep into the birthplace of words, trying to navigate how we continue to add thousands of words to our language every century. Simply put, it is fascinating! But because I'm spending half my day doing this research, I'd rather not write more about it here, so instead I'd like to talk about one of the great parents of words--William Shakespeare. See a couple of weeks ago, I went down to the Utah Shakespeare Festival and saw Love's Labours Lost. It was fantastic! The theater is outdoors and built to mimic theaters of Shakespeare's time. I was swept away by the wit of the dialogue and the timeless theories on human interaction--plus there was a load of strong women, so of course I loved it. We loved it so much that we came back the next night to see The Tempest. And then the next night to see King John. 

The Utah Shakespeare Festival theater is suh-weet!

       As an English undergrad, I quickly realized that just because a work was considered a classic, didn't mean I necessarily thought it deserved to be. Some authors are famous because they wrote a work at the right time and the right place. Take Uncle Tom's Cabin. Not necessarily Pulitzer-winning writing, but man was this an important book. Others are famous for good literary reason, but I still don't love them. (Sorry to cramp on all you Willa Cather fans out there, but My Antonia was the longest book I've ever read at 232 pages long, if you know what I mean.) I've had my ups and downs with Shakespeare, but I've reached a point where I get his acclaim. Shakespeare's fame is somewhat inconceivable to me. How is it that a playwright (an area of literature we currently aren't very keen on. When was the last time a playwright was a New York Times Bestseller?) from four hundred years ago is one of the most well-known names in the world? Besides naming Queen Elizabeth, I don't think very many people could name another person who lived about the same time as Shakespeare and especially not another writer or playwright. (Bonus points go to whomever was thinking "Christopher Marlowe" or "Ben Jonson" in their heads.) I, like many others, don't know why Shakespeare has rockstar status. Fortunately for me, that's not the intent of this post. Nope, I want to talk about neologisms.

"I'm Shakespeare, and I'm so cool, I'm made of words!"

neologism: a newly minted word

       Neologism is a word linguists created so they wouldn't have to say the long-winded phrase "new word." Shakespeare is the king of neologisms. He used 17,677 different words to write his 37 surviving plays. Out of those words 1,700 were coined by Shakespeare. Check out a list of a few of them here. The Oxford English Dictionary, aka the coolest dictionary ever--and yes, dictionaries can be cool, though some are pure dorks--cites Shakespeare as its #2 source for all its validating quotes. Pretty awesome! The #1 source is Time, which was written by hundreds of writers, so props to Will for making the #2 spot all by his lonesome. I don't know why, but this makes me super excited.
       Just think, if Shakespeare didn't exist, we'd have a lot fewer words to use. I wouldn't know how to express the fact that I swaggered down the hallway--not that I've ever successfully performed that verb, but it still makes me happy that I will be verbally prepared if I ever have success there. Thanks, Bill! All the scuffles in the world would just be fights. Bo-ring! And a little bit of my childhood would disappear with the non-birth of bedazzled. Man, Willy, you really brightened up our language!
       However, there is one word that makes me jealous every time I see it that we have thanks to Ol' Billy. It's Shakespearean. How cool would it be to do something so wonderful (or awful, though that's not cool) that your very name is turned into an adjective? To be fair, Shakespearean isn't as cool as Cartesian. René Descartes got the first half of his name chopped off and  two phonemes (that's linguist for "sounds") added to his name that aren't remotely related to his original last name. I just have to say, I'd be willing to sacrifice part of my name and add weird sounds to the end if it meant being an adjective. But what would the adjective of myself mean? Now there's an existential question.

Cheers,

Amanda Kae

If your name was made into an adjective, what would it be and what would it mean? I want to know, and maybe I'll share what mine would be too.