23 Things You Didn’t Know About William Shakespeare on his 450th Birthday

Today is the 450th anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare. Or at least as close as we'll ever know -his date of birth was not recorded, but his baptism three days later was. The playwright who contributed to much to the world of language, storytelling, and drama is a virtual mine of trivia, so you may as well learn some of it in honor of the occasion.

2. Shakespeare has been credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with introducing almost 3,000 words to the English language.

Estimations of his vocabulary range from 17,000 to a dizzying 29,000 words – at least double the number of words used by the average conversationalist.

5. Shakespeare never published his plays.

They are known today only because two of his fellow actors – John Hemminges and Henry Condell – recorded and published 36 of them posthumously under the name The First Folio, which is the source of all Shakespeare books published.

Read the rest in a list at Buzzfeed.

(Image credit: Mean Girls of Shakespeare)


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