‛hoar frost' and 'rime' definitions

Extract from Jules Verne's The Adventures Of Captain Hatteras; four men, including the captain, have left their brig, frozen in for the winter, to cross the ice fields of the North Pole, with intention to find coal provisions that were left behind on a previous exploration:

All at once, without warning of any kind, a vapour rose from the ground in a complete state of congelation;it reached a height of about 90 feet, and remained stationary; they could not see a foot before them; it clung to their clothing, and bristled it with ice.Our travellers, surprised by the frost-rime, had all the same idea – that of getting near one another. They called out, 'Bell!' 'Simpson!' 'This way, doctor!' 'Where are you, captain?' But no answers were heard; the vapour did not conduct sound. They all fired as a sign of rallying. But if the sound of the voice appeared to week, the detonation of the firearms was too strong, for it was echoed in all directions, and produced a confused rumble without appreciable direction. Each acted then according to his instincts. Hatteras stopped, folded his arms, and waited. Simpson contented himself with stopping his sledge. Bell retraced his steps, feeling the traces with his hands. The doctor ran hither and dither bumping against the icebergs, falling down, getting up, andlosing himself more and more…

Development: Lessons from Stephen Krashen and the Natural Acquisition Theory

Commentary commentary 

An exercise I found today amongst some papers:

EXERCISE

meaningful input |  low anxiety situations |  natural communication |  communicative |

comprehensible input |  forcing and correcting production |  grammatical rules |  tedious drills

Language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious _________ ____, and does not require ______ _______.

Acquisition requires ________ _________ in the target language, ______ ____________ in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding. 

The best methods are therefore those that supply 'comprehensible input' in ___ ______ ______, containing messages that students really want to hear. These methods do not force early production in the second language, but allow Students to produce when they are 'ready', recognising that improvement comes from supplying ____________ and _______ _______, and not from _______________________. 

ANSWER KEY

Language acquisition does not require extensive use of conscious grammar rules, and does not require tedious drills.

Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language, natural communication in which speakers are concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding. 

The best methods are therefore those that supply 'comprehensible input' in low anxiety situations, containing messages that students really want to hear. These methods do not force early production in the second language, but allow Students to produce when they are 'ready', recognising that improvement comes from supplying communicative and comprehensive input, and not from forcing and correcting production. 

Stephen Krashen (influential linguist, b 1941) 

 

What about the studial learner with respect to the experiential and quick progression through the course — do schools' approaches to language acquisition appeal to our 'learn through experience' tendency as learners and bias away from our tendency to study a language?

Four proposed learner types in ELT

Both 'these methods do not force early production' and ‘when they are ready' resonate with me after having worked with this approach for several years at language centres around Buenos Aires (for Wall Street Institute, now Wall Street English).

Some history: the 'natural approach' is summarised by the above exercise by Stephen Krashen, linguistics professor emeritus at the University of Southern California. Krashen is the creator of important language acquisition hypotheses on which schools have based teaching methods, to which I can give testimony here. 

Audio-lingual methods fell from
popularity in the 1950s

The natural method aims to teach a second language in large part through an immersion in it – it brings the immersion approach to the classroom setting. It builds its arguments from natural acquisition we experienced post birth, it is based on the same principles. Conditions are set up that will imitate a mother-tongue acquisition setting with all materials in, and all staff speaking, the target language (TL). Learners are made aware that they can only speak the TL when inside the school. 

The natural method came to fruition early 20th century as an answer to a growing dissatisfaction with older grammar-translation methods. 

Such a method had been proposed in the 18th and 19th centuries, proposing languages should be taught in the language being learned. It then found reinforcement in the 1970s in a language teaching revolution of sorts, since which time a variety of new communicative-based methods have emerged, one of which was what I worked with at Wall Street Institute.

In my EFL lessons (lessons in non-English speaking countries) it is only in exceptional cases I use the learners' first language (L1). I develop other clarifying techniques, e.g., gesture, mime, use of sound, drawings, synonyms, opposites, collocation, clines, examples, explanation, dictionaries, picture-matching cards, partial modelling, realia (real objects). The learner can benefit from learning these skills, likewise. There are psycholinguistic and biopsychological findings that support increased retention in relation to taking the longer more difficult path to signalling meaning, i.e., by adopting these skills over translation methods (giving away the answer in Spanish). The language faculties are given their full workout ergo greater likelihood of retention.

All of which corresponds with the communicative-based approach of immersive schools, which are based on Krashen’s hypotheses for language acquisition. 

At Wall Street Institute centres, staff are encouraged to use target language (TL) with learners. This means the structures, vocabulary, functional language, pragmatics, phrases and expressions of English surround learners and sets up those 'natural' conditions already mentioned. Exposure is also had on-line at home through interactive multimedia, in ‘Speaking Centres’, through native speaker teachers and of course other learners (particularly in ‘Social Classes’).

Despite this, for most learners, exposure is mainly had via computers. Additionally, many learners’ attendance rate to the centres is not ideal, which means eliciting language from the learner, or sometimes groups of learners, is the lion’s share of the teacher's work in the ‘Encounter’ (the Encounter is the monthly level-checking meeting of 55 minutes, pass or fail). At any rate, I enjoy developing CELTA techniques with respect to eliciting whilst maximising STT (student talk time) and minimising TTT (teacher talk time).

A Multimedia Lab or Speaking Centre

In an ideal Encounter the learner can produce most of the required language naturally, little aware they have done so. In such an Encounter, there is time left over for clarifying doubts and heightening language awareness, for chatting and improving general fluency (also an Encounter criterion).

It is great to witness a click for some learners; where for others it was gradual. There are moments in which oral fluency opens up for learners and the language to which they have been being exposed for long durations is there and available for them to use. At times they have had to fail and repeat their course unit; this repetition and that which is inherent to the course itself help this click occur. Sometimes in magic moments of this type, passive understandings of things become active and able to be discussed.

It is at these times I enjoy seeing the methodology in action, its promise delivered.

My Encounters always include praise and tailored feedback; the fewer the learners in an Encounter there are, the more tailored the feedback can be in the allotted 5 minutes.

Returning to the aforementioned studial versus experiential tendency we have to varying degrees,    it is the learners of both low exposure and low tendency to study who generally progress through  slowly. 

While understanding the real-world constraints that exist here in Buenos Aires, I wish learners would attend more of the immersive activities, those on which the method hinges, because the reality inside the classroom, as I sense it, is that the method leaves behind learners who are not able to attend the classes that simulate the immersive condition and then do not have enough studial materials either available to compensate.

Under controlled, less controlled, and then freer conditions, learners are exposed to each language point to acquire. This is a very careful joinery to acquisition, relative to the retention available through studial methods. Learners can organise speaking practice with the centres' personal tutors (Argentinian nationals), or by taking 'Complementary Classes' or 'Social Classes' (with L1 speakers) or simply by speaking to staff and peers around the centre; Complementary are focussed on practice of language, i.e. useful functional language, vocabulary, and grammar, in varied contexts, and for Social Classes learners can put their their skills to use, i.e. speaking, listening, reading and writing.

The Encounter, therefore, involved clarifying and reteaching of the language points. 

Checking in with leaners regarding their course objectives, a mere improvement in general fluency (listening or oral) by interacting with English-speaking expats is not everyone's aim.  

I know that without the exposure to L2 here in Argentina I wouldn't have developed some invaluable aspects of fluency; equally, pen-and-paper self-study of Spanish grammar, was also, I know now, invaluable. 

Ultimately, I think studying language as an adult is important and not just strictly absorbing it experientially. I think natural production of the language is facilitated with immersion. However, this strict picking-up of the language, implicit in the approach, seemed to also leave deficits and delays in production. It seems that applying the critical period of acquisition we have had in younger years to adulthood has its flaws despite Krashen's hypotheses. 

Find here a teacher-learner guide I put together whilst working at the school 'Understanding the Learner, which I've referred back to many a time.

From 2022 ‘Adults are better language learners than children’ (in studial settings)

In Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (2nd. Ed.). Richards J. & Rodgers T. (2003). Cambridge University Press.

"The Direct Method was quite successful in private language schools, such as those of the Berlitz chain, where paying clients had high motivation and the use of native-speaking teachers was the norm. But despite pressure from proponents of the method, it was difficult to implement in public secondary school education. It overemphasised and distorted the similarities between naturalistic first language learning and classroom foreign language learning and failed to consider the practical realities of the classroom. In addition, it lacked a rigorous basis in applied linguistic theory, and for this reason it was often criticised by the more academically based proponents of the Reform Movement. The Direct Method represented the product of enlightened amateurism. It was perceived to have several drawbacks. It required teachers who were native speakers or who had nativelike fluency in the foreign language. It was largely dependent on the teacher's skill, rather than on a textbook, and not all teachers were proficient enough in the foreign language to adhere to the principles of the method. Critics pointed out that strict adherence to Direct Method principles was often counterproductive, since teachers were required to go to great lengths to avoid using the native language, when sometimes a simple, brief explanation in the student's native language would have been a more efficient route to comprehension.

The Harvard psychologist Roger Brown has documented similar problems with strict Direct Method techniques. He described his frustration in observing a teacher performing verbal gymnastics in an attempt to convey the meaning of Japanese words, when translation would have been a much more efficient technique (Brown 1973: 5)." (p.12-13)

Lack of Grading, Student Talk Time and CCQs common in the field

Commentary

It was surprising to see the teacher-centred, faced-paced, complex and idiomatic language used occasionally around the EFL classrooms here in Argentina, by  travelling native speaker teachers. 

grading (language): the way in which teachers simplify their classroom language in the interests of intelligibility, especially with beginners and elementary learners. 

It is possible to over-grade, admittedly.

Second to that is TTT, teacher talk time, as contrasted with STT, student talk time: learners should be speaking at least 80% of the class. 

Observation: Ts in the field are not engaged in trying to create various space s for learners to talk.

Learning Spanish myself, people sometimes assume I understand it proficiently, causing me confusion at times and even dispiritedness.

These are important takeaways from the CELTA course that helped me find work here in Argentina. 

'do you understand?' is another phrase my ears are exposed to. 

Enter Concept Checking Questions (CCQs)! 

Do not use target language (TL/language point being taught) within CCQs nor language that is of greater complexity than the TL.

Keeping it simple:–

Tom ran up the stairs.

What did Tom do? He ran.

In what direction? Up.

Where? The stairs.

√ 

From University of Cambridge's CELTA Trainee book, on grading:

Read sentences a–g. Tick five sentences that offer good advice. Cross out the other two sentences.

a  Pronounce each word slowly and deliberately.
b  Use gestures, pictures and other things that will support what you are saying to make it easier to understand.
c  Speak with natural rhythm and intonation.
d  Miss out small words (articles, prepositions, auxiliary verbs and so on) so that the learners can focus on the 'content' words and understand the message.
e  Speak at a natural speed, but pause slightly longer after each 'chunk', if necessary.
f  Try to avoid 'difficult' vocabulary (for example, very idiomatic language).
g  Try to avoid complex grammar patterns.

a  Pronounce each word slowly and deliberately.

b  Use gestures, pictures and other things that will support what you are saying to make it easier to understand. √

c  Speak with natural rhythm and intonation. √

d  Miss out small words (articles, prepositions, auxiliary verbs and so on) so that the learners can focus on the 'content' words and understand the message.

e  Speak at a natural speed, but pause slightly longer after each 'chunk', if necessary. √

f  Try to avoid 'difficult' vocabulary (for example, very idiomatic language). √

g  Try to avoid complex grammar patterns. √

On the History of English Pronunciation

commentary

OE = Old English (c. 550 to c. 1250)

ME = Middle English (c. 1150 to c. 1470)

What did Middle-English sound like? Well, seeing that Middle-English is a dead language, and as there are no aural but only visual records of it (i.e. in the form of writing), we really don't know for sure. Yet English is a phonographic language and one way we can know is by looking at its spelling – a phonographic language is one whose letters match onto speech sounds, for example C gives us a /k/ sound, A gives us an /æ/ sound, and T a /t/ sound, such that when pronounced together we have the sound that represents

Of course, the relationship between thing to sound is completely arbitrary, as, indeed, each language terms this furry creature differently. Irrespective of this, with a word's spelling in English we usually have an idea of its sound. 

One of Chaucer's most
accurate portraits.

By looking at the works of one of the language's most celebrated poets, Geoffrey Chaucer (d. 1400), we can get a great idea of how the language was used and how it sounded in his period. Firstly, through the spelling of the works – perhaps the most obvious and direct way. Secondly, by looking at how words would rhyme then. Another method, 'comparative reconstruction', is also possible, which looks at how other related languages were functioning at that time. 

As mentioned English is phonographic. However, this phonographic writing system wasn't devised by Chaucer, nor in the ME period in which he wrote. These letters were developed centuries earlier from the Greek alphabet for the writing of Latin (observe the Greek words alhpa: A, and beta: B, and the Latin: alphabetum). During a time of Christianisation in England, Anglo-Saxon scribes were tasked with creating a Roman alphabet for the English language (i.e. to 'romanize' it; to use letters from the Latin spoken by the Romans). The scribes had been trained to write in Latin, thus, in adopting the alphabet for English, they sensibly maintained the same correspondences between sounds and letters. These letters have been handed down more or less unchanged (from OE through ME) to present-day English, and as a result, many of the consonants used by Chaucer have the same sounds today.

'Futhorc runes' are a slight adap-

tion for OE of an Anglo-Saxon-

Frisian writing system, this one

dying out c. 1000, in England.

Not all sounds were found in Latin, however. For example, the voiced 'th' sound we still use today /ð/ (this, other, smooth, mother), and the unvoiced /θ/ (thing, author, path). So they turned to the Germanic alphabet and its runes, which they were familiar with from their earlier use in Northern Europe and Scandinavia; an alphabet characterised by its angular letter shapes suited for carving on stone or wood. The letter they borrowed from such alphabet was 'thorn', appearing as  (formed today by letters TH).

Thorn fell out of use the in 16th century when it began to be written using curved strokes, thereby confusing it with the letter Y. Note mistakes in existing archaistic shop signs bearing 'ye olde…' (where 'the old…' is meant), and yet ye, with a Y, is actually an archaic plural form 'thou': e olde inn would be more correct, or authentic.

While consonants mightn't have changed a great deal, the same cannot be said for vowel sounds, and herein lies most of the doubt. By looking at the way Chuacer's words rhymed we get a glimpse at the differences in some of the ways the vowels sounded. Chaucer rhymed 'good' with 'blood', 'town' with 'region', and 'mice' with 'malice'. 'Good' and 'blood' had a round O sound, quite logically. Today we spell this sound generally with O-A as in 'boat', or, with E at the end as in 'vote'  (sometimes called the magic E). 'Town' and 'region' rhymed correctly according to the pronunciation of Chaucer's time: 'town' was actually spelt with a U, tun (as was house, mouse, down, how) and represented a long U sound as in 'goose'; 'region' was borrowed into English during a large-scale adoption of French and Latin vocabulary, and was sounded, in its French mediæevil period, with a long U sound, alike (stress on the second syllable). And so, in this way we can reconstruct Chaucer's vowel sounds with some confidence.  

Listen to a reading of Chaucer's Canterbery Tales here.

At some point during the 'great vowel shift' of the 16th century all of these sounds have changed into various diphthongs. Interestingly, this shift affected Scottish accents differently, so much that the Chuacerian pronunciation can still be found in Scotland today (listen here). The aspirated W in 'when', 'what', 'who', 'where', 'which' survived, principally, in Scottish pronunciation.

Note that while pronunciation, indeed, has changed quite a lot, spelling has remained relatively stable. Spelling has been codified in dictionaries and grammar books. Students are taught a standard, or a fixed spelling system. A standard as such did not exist in Chaucer's day, and as a result spellings differed from place to place, and between those of his contemporaries (John Gower, William Langland, and authors of Sir Gawain and The Green Knight). In the 15th century this changed with the birth of a standard, one which has mostly remained unchanged. 

Silent letters are relics of earlier pronunciations that have since changed. Such as the droppings of the letters in 'knight', 'gnaw', and 'comb'. This dropping of letters was not recorded in the standard. One good way we can know they were indeed pronounced is by looking at alliteration used in the poetry of these times. In addition to that, most other Germanic languages have retained pronunciation of the letters, such that, a little sound may be heard before the T in 'knight', for example (Germanic languages are a group of modern languages English is related to. Those are German, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Danish, which were all once part of one language know as proto-germanic, of which no text survived). At length, by comparing the roots of these other languages, i.e. Old-English, Old-Norse, and Gothic, we can deduce what their common original must have been like and gain insights into how these related languages were functioning.

In fact, the spelling system of today, frustrating as it is for its non-native learners, is more valuable as a guide for the pronunciation of Chaucer's English, and useful for understanding mediævil English pronunciation, than it is to our own.

Prologue to The Summoner's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer

original text:                                           modern translation:

	This frere bosteth that he knoweth helle,	This friar boasts that he knows hell,
	And God it woot, that it is litel wonder;	And God knows that it is little wonder;
	Freres and feendes been but lyte asonder.	Friars and fiends are seldom far apart.
	For, pardee, ye han ofte tyme herd telle	For, by God, you have ofttimes heard tell
	How that a frere ravyshed was to helle	How a friar was taken to hell
	In spirit ones by a visioun;	In spirit, once by a vision;
	And as an angel ladde hym up and doun,	And as an angel led him up and down,
	To shewen hym the peynes that the were,	To show him the pains that were there,
	In al the place saugh he nat a frere;	In all the place he saw not a friar;
	Of oother folk he saugh ynowe in wo.	Of other folk he saw enough in woe.
	Unto this angel spak the frere tho:	Unto this angel spoke the friar thus:
	Now, sire, quod he, han freres swich a grace	"Now sir", said he, "Have friars such a grace
	That noon of hem shal come to this place?	That none of them come to this place?"
	Yis, quod this aungel, many a millioun!	"Yes", said the angel, "many a million!"
	And unto sathanas he ladde hym doun.	And unto Satan the angel led him down.
	--And now hath sathanas,--seith he,--a tayl	"And now Satan has", he said, "a tail,
	Brodder than of a carryk is the sayl.	Broader than a galleon's sail.
	Hold up thy tayl, thou sathanas!--quod he;	Hold up your tail, Satan!" said he.
	--shewe forth thyn ers, and lat the frere se	"Show forth your arse, and let the friar see
	Where is the nest of freres in this place!--	Where the nest of friars is in this place!"
	And er that half a furlong wey of space,	And before half a furlong of space,
	Right so as bees out swarmen from an hyve,	Just as bees swarm out from a hive,
	Out of the develes ers ther gonne dryve	Out of the devil's arse there were driven
	Twenty thousand freres on a route,	Twenty thousand friars on a rout,
	And thurghout helle swarmed al aboute,	And throughout hell swarmed all about,
	And comen agayn as faste as they may gon,	And came again as fast as they could go,
	And in his ers they crepten everychon.	And every one crept into his arse.
	He clapte his tayl agayn and lay ful stille.	He shut his tail again and lay very still.

On masses of ice

From The Adventures of Captain Hatteras by Jules Verne:

'They scarcely leave a passage for the [brig] Forward. Just examine that immense plain over there.'

'The whalers call that in our language an icefield, that is to say a continued surface of ice the limits of which cannot be perceived.'

'And on that side, that broken field, those long pieces of ice more or less joined at their edges?'

'That is a pack; if it was of a circular form we should call it a patch; and, if the form was longer, a stream.'

'And there, those floating icebergs?'

'Those are drift ice; if they were a little higher they would be icebergs or hills; their contact with vessels is dangerous, and must be carefully avoided. Here look over there: on that iceberg there is a protuberance produced by the pressure of the icebergs; we call that hummock; if that protuberance was submerged to its base we should call it a calf. It was very necessary to give names to all those forms in order to recognise them.'

'It is truly a marvellous spectacle!' exclaimed the doctor, contemplating the wonders of the Boreal Seas; 'There is a field for the imagination in such pictures!'

‛iceblink' definition

► noun

a bright appearance of the sky caused by reflection from a distant ice sheet.

From The Adventures of Captain Hatteras by Jules Verne:

'The master signalled the first sight of the iceblink; it was about 20 miles to the N.N.W. This glaring white strip was brilliantly lighted up, in spite of the presence of the thick clouds in the neighbouring parts of the sky. Experienced people on board could make no mistake about this phenomenon, and declared, from its whiteness, that the blink was owing to a large ice-field, situated at about 30 miles out of sight, and that it proceeded from the reflection of luminous rays.'

'The weather cleared up, and the eye could sweep over the white plains in the distance, which the reflection of the sun's rays rendered dazzling.'

Animal vocabulary time with beginners! – WSI

Learner feedback unimportant?

commentary

from Jim Scrivener's 'Learning Teaching' about teachers' initial worries in class:

• I hope I don't say anything silly.
• What on Earth can I do next?
• Do they like me?
• That activity only lasted three minutes, and I thought it'd last 45.
• This is lasting forever, and I thought it would take three minutes.
• I feel so confused.
• I don't really understand this thing I'm teaching.
• Is the observer going to catch me out? What's she writing?
• This is so boring.

a solution for which, Jim suggests, lies in continually gaining feedback from the learners in order to fine-tune our intuitive responses.

aught

'before aught else, we must be free'
— Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Silvia's English Corner

Private tuition – general oral fluency only: Silvia Mucci (Minister for the Environment, Buenos Aires Province)

Social Outings – WSI

A day out in the Japanese Gardens

An evening at the Irish pub

Shakespeare's Influence on the English Language

commentary

'Friend' in its verb form – 'befriend' having a slightly different meaning – was coined by Shakespeare 400 years ago. Only today it has made it into mainstream use (FB).

Shakespeare's neologisms amount to as many as 33,300, in fact. A neologism is a newly coined word or expression. That's more than twice the quotations than the next sighted author Walter Scott, and much more than Chaucer, the Bible, Milton, and so on.

Much of the evidence for this can be derived from the Oxford English Dictionary. 

The Oxford English Dictionary: A short historical sketch.

One of the great endeavours of Victorian and Edwardian scholarship, the dictionary was conceived in the late 1850s (outside Oxford) by a body called the London Philological Society. It was then established in Oxford in 1878 and brought to fruition only in 1928 after a long and bumpy ride. Editors of the Oxford English Dictionary set out to read through as many printed works as possible from all periods of the English language. They would then extract quotations from these works, showing how words had been used from their earliest occurrence to their latest, then deduce from these the senses of the words as manifested through their history.


The OED is unique; this aspect sets it apart from the many other dictionaries before and since. 

An extensive amount of etymological information can be found within each entry in the dictionary. See an example here.


Lexicographers, volunteers, and editors analysed not only letters, diaries, histories and newspapers, but also works relating to arts, sciences, commerce and crafts, as well as literary texts: poems, novels, plays, and so on. 

There did exist, however, a literary bias, partly owing to the predominate view that literature had an especially formative role in creating and preserving language (which prevails today to some extent), and, also, partly to a superior availability of literary texts. Other bias included race, class, and gender – there are lots of cultural assumptions enshrined in the OED, which is natural for the Edwardian and Victoria periods in which it was created, and which we would now think of as distinct cultural prejudices.

This feature was also true of the second edition, published in 1989, whose pre-1800s work was not updated. The second edition did, however, mark the digitalisation of OED and the publication of it on-line. The dictionary now for the first time could be reliably quantified, with greater search capabilities and efficiency, and one could see much more clearly the extent of Shakespeare's dominance throughout it.

The third edition is currently being worked on. Since the year 2000 it has covered about a third of the alphabet. The draft version is available on-line. There are lots of differences being introduced into the 3rd edition because of the new textual evidence the lexicographers have access to via electronic databases of all available historical texts: works published in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and more contemporary works. Mentioned databases of now all periods of the history of the language, alongside such electronic search capabilities, are enabling a complete reanalysis of the OED.

––––∞––––

'All the great English writers of all ages'

were named by the OED's then chief editor, James Murray (d.1915) as his principal quotation sources. An additional bias, then, within the literary texts chosen to formulate the OED was given to those of Shakespeare, a virtually comprehensive treatment that was not meted out to any other writer, or text, of any period. 

OED's treatment of Shakespeare inescapably has been extraordinarily influential on histories of the language and on studies and editions of Shakespeare's work. Note the asterisks and other notations below used by editors to point out words and their senses in editions of his plays. Altogether, 2,000 lexemes (lexeme: a basic unit of language; the item recorded in the headword of the dictionary) made it into the OED of a recorded 20,000. That's one-tenth of his stock that were in new usage, a proportion matched by no other post-mediæval writer whose usages are recorded in the OED.

So the question is are these numbers and figures a just reflection of Shakespeare's contribution to the language, or do they rather reflect the cultural values of the lexicographers. Well, it must be the latter. But if so, to what extent? Now that OED is undergoing revision it is possible to begin to clarify the answer to this question. 

The sixty-four thousand dollar question is: is Shakespeare's reputation as linguistic innovator par excellence in the English language going to be sustained, increased, or undermined? Working this out is difficult, apparently, because of the two available editions, 2nd and 3rd, and their being merged together on-line – there are differing conventions between the two on dating, on selections of headwords, and more: in other words the difficulty lies in how each are presented, and in separating like from like.  

OED is now antedating about a third of the words attributed to Shakespeare. Some words can now be traced back as far as Old English, and before his time.

On the other hand, there are new neologisms, i.e. ones they hadn't recorded before, because they are reanalysing his life and finding more compounds than before. Take, for example, the line 'life in death' in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis: Adonis describes love as 'a life in death', which was construed later by another author to be a single compound, 'the nightmare life-in-death was she'. This word, 'life-in-death', as a compound, now merits its own entry, with Shakespeare as the creator. Others include compounds with 'never': never-erring, never-withering, never-surfeited. Also, 'Old-lad', 'old-son', are now first his. Moreover, in the neologism-full Love's Labour's Lost, quite a lot of its words turn out, in fact, to have been already used previously. Whereas, in contrast, Hamlet has lost quite a lot less neologisms attributed to Shakespeare, after the revision, as it proceeds.

We see that from Hamlet, the verb 'pander' (newspapers are pandering to people's baser instincts: to gratify or indulge an immoral or distasteful desire or taste or a person with such a desire or taste) was first used in Chaucer's Troilis and Crisyde as the main character (as a noun), Pandare.


More questions arise yet. Have some words remained and been more readily accepted into the language because of the value of neologisms? Are some neologisms more interesting than others? 

It is easy to see this new revision of the OED is changing the lexical landscape as far as Shakespeare is concerned. 

The phrases below are quite common in modern English; have you heard of any? Ask any native speaker of English what they mean, and whether they knew Shakespeare coined them!

Break the ice.

Come what may.

Good riddance!

As luck would have it.

The be-all and end-all.

The world's my oyster.

A wild-goose chase.

The long and the short of it.

A sorry sight.

Play fast and loose.

In one fell swoop.

Not slept one wink.

Neither rhyme nor reason.

Love is blind.

Laughing stock.

Laugh (oneself) into stitches.

In a pickle.

Tis high time.

For goodness' sake.

Forever and a day.

Eaten me out of house and home.

Dog will have his day.

Dead as a doornail.

Refuse to budge an inch.

Bated breath.

All that glitters is not gold.

Glimpse inside the Globe Theatre here in this truly great television documentary on English.

sources: prefaces of the first and second editions of the Oxford English Dictionary; podcast Shakespeare and the Oxford English Dictionary spoken by Charlotte Brewer (involved in language research projects at Oxford University and in their new MST in the English language); http://www.pathguy.com/shakeswo.htm .