Gramergirl here, this week marked what would have been Shakespeare's 450th birthday, so

this week will frolic through his enormous contributions to modern English.

Some sources say that Shakespeare coined more than 1900 English words, but that number

is likely to be high.

He most definitely invented many words and also came up with new meanings for old words,

but those original counts are high because they come from the Oxford English Dictionary,

whose human workers were known to favor Shakespearean texts when looking for citations.

Modern searches done with computers have turned up earlier instances of some words.

For example, the word puke had long been attributed to Shakespeare, but the OED now has two

earlier entries.

But don't worry, we're still left with many fabulous words that lexicographers

credit to the Bard.

As of divergent, Shakespeare brought us the adjective don'tless by adding the less suffix

to the verb don't.

In Henry VI Part III, Lewis says quote, yield not thy neck to fortunes yoke, but let thy

don'tless mind still ride and triumph over all mischance.

If you're more of a foreigner fan, you can think Shakespeare for hot blooded and cold blooded

while you're at it.

And if you liked Fergie singing about her swagger in boom boom pow with the black eyed

peas, you can think Shakespeare for that too, because mid-Summer Night's Dream from 1600

had the first known written use of the word swagger, formed by adding the ER suffix to the verb

sweg, which meant something like to sway without control.

...