Do It Like Shakespeare

I read a quote from FBI Assistant Director Mark Mershon: "We've had a number of uncomfortable questions and some upsetment with these foreign intelligence services that had been working with us."

Upsetment.

I was sure it wasn't a real word, but I looked it up anyway because it sounded like such a practical word. I knew exactly what he meant. It sounds better than upsettedness.

Upsetment?

It is, in fact, not a "real" word. However, even thought I'm embarrassed for him for sounding stupid for saying it, I can't disapprove entirely of his use of it.

The more I read about William Shakespeare - which isn't much at all, but it's more than it was when it was nothing - the more I respect him. Aside from any personal opinions about his plays and sonnets, just take a look at what he did for the English language. According to scholars, he beefed it up with more than 1,600 new words.

Dang. That's some serious love of language!

He took great liberties with the English language and for that he is a hero in my book.
Granted, in his time, though he surely got major flack from the traditionalists, he was afforded more creativity in his writing because there weren't dictionaries to declare that something was or wasn't a "real" word.

L.I.D.* forever, baby.

Baugh & Cable wrote in their book A History of the English Language (yes, KC, I kept the book from Tally's class) that "Shakespeare had the largest vocabulary of any English writer. This is due not only to his daring and resourceful use of words but also in part to his ready acceptance of new words of every kind."

(*L.I.D. = Language is dynamic)