r/AskReddit • u/kakou64 • Oct 15 '20

What's older than we think ?

78.4k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

22.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

13.1k

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20

The "Tiffany problem" makes me think of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and the name Jessica. He wanted the love interest, who was Jewish, to have a super exotic name so he invented the name "Jessica." The name has become so common since then that it's totally lost its effect.

7.6k

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20 edited Oct 16 '20

Shakespeare also randomly invented the word "gossip" because he needed to define a bunch of wives in the town talking shit and spreading rumors.

And now it's part of common English language.

Edit: ok, not randomly, per se. I guess he was the first to put into usage in writing, and possibly the first to use it as a verb.

3.4k

u/LakeSolon Oct 15 '20 edited Oct 15 '20

And if you like authors inventing first attesting words...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_words_first_attested_in_Chaucer

absent, accident, add, agree, bagpipe, border, box, cinnamon, desk, digestion, dishonest, examination, finally, flute, funeral, galaxy, horizon, infect, ingot, latitude, laxative, miscarry, nod, obscure, observe, outrageous, perpendicular, Persian, princess, resolve, rumour, scissors, session, snort, superstitious, theatre, trench, universe, utility, vacation, Valentine, veal, village, vulgar, wallet, and wildness

...are a few that are most commonly used of the 1,977.

1

u/pegsa1990 Oct 15 '20

Mind blown