ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the specifics of Shakespeare's word coining power. But it is appropriate that before analysis should come admiration of his huge, rich vocabulary, and his use of unexpected, memorable words. The American cartoonist Bill Watterson has a cartoon about verbing. In it the young boy, Calvin, announces that he likes to verb words. Though functional shift does attract such responses, it is a very powerful tool for expanding the lexical resources of a language. The word renaissance means rebirth, and starting in Florence in the fourteenth century and spreading across Europe in classical culture. There is a branch of linguistics known as neurolinguistics which looks at brain functioning in relation to language activity. A compound is a word made up of two or more elements joined together. It has always been a popular means of word creation in English. It was also a rich source of language development in Shakespeare's day, and it continues to be popular today.
