A word is born Coining a term to denote expressions invented by authors

Authorism is actually a neologism, a new word coinage. It was invented – or at least first used in this sense – by the language scholar Paul Dickson for the express purpose of giving a name to his book on words invented by authors. Authorism: Words Wrought by Writers was published in 2014 on the occasion of William Shakespeare’s 450th birthday. (The word had been used in the past to relate to the state of being a writer, as when Horace Walpole, in the late 18th century, discussed a writer too satisfied with his “authorism”.)

Shakespeare was the uncrowned king of authorisms. His written vocabulary, Dickson tells us, consisted of 17,245 words, many of which he simply made up, for his plays. These included terms that are so essential to our everyday conversation – like ‘bump’, ‘road’, ‘hurry’, ‘critical’ and ‘bedazzled’ – that one wonders how English coped without them before Shakespeare dreamt them up.

Scholars have tripped over each other in the effort to count Shakespeare’s authorisms: some put the total at 500, others come up with the extraordinary number of 1,700. Aside from individual words, Shakespeare’s authorisms include famous phrases that have come into common use since his day, like ‘brave new world’, ‘all’s well that ends well’, ‘setting your teeth on edge’, and ‘being cruel only to be kind’.

No wonder George Bernard Shaw created an authorism to describe excessive worship of Shakespeare: bardolatry.