The History of English in ten minutes. Chapter 3: Shakespeare, or a plaque on both his houses.
As the dictionary tells us about 2000 new words and phrases were invented by William
Shakespeare. He gave us handy words like eyeball, puppy dog and anchovy and more show-offy words
like dauntless, besmirch and lacklustre. He came up with the word alligator, soon after
he ran out of things to rhyme with crocodile and a nation of tea drinkers finally took
him to their hearts when he invented the hob-nob. Shakespeare knew the power of catchphrases
as well as biscuits, without him we would never eat our flesh and blood out of house
and home, we would have to say good riddance to the green-eyed monster and breaking the
ice would be as dead as a door nail. If you try to get your money's worth, you would be
given short shrift and any one who laid it on with a trowel could be hoist with his own
petard. Of course it is possible that other people used these words first, but the dictionary
writers liked looking them up in Shakespeare cos there was more cross dressing and people
taking each other's eyes out. Shakespeare's poetry showed the world that English was a
rich, vibrant language with limitless expressive and emotional power and he still had time
to open all those tea rooms in Stratford.