According to the Oxford English Dictionary (which is the world authority on the English language) Shakespeare made more contributions to the language than any other single person who has ever lived. In other words, the man invented more words than anyone else ever has. In fact, the OED estimates that Shakespeare enlarged the existing language by 1/3 in his day. (So, for instance, if there had only been 1000 words, there would have been 1333 when he was done.).
We quote Shakespeare every day; most people don't even realize it. Find the book Brush Up Your Shakespeare; it'll give you a complete list of all the words he created.
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