In the world of professional writing, “cliché” is often a four-letter word. At ClicheCrush, we spend our days helping authors and journalists identify “semantic exhaustion”—those phrases that have lost their punch through centuries of overexposure. But as we expand our repository of 5,000 entries, we have to acknowledge a complicated truth: our greatest enemy is also the greatest writer in the English language.
William Shakespeare is frequently cited as the creator of over 1,700 words and hundreds of idioms. However, he didn’t write in clichés; he invented the very metaphors that were so effective they became required for the English-speaking world. He solved linguistic problems that we are still dealing with today.
The Myth of the 1,700
You may have heard the statistic that Shakespeare “invented” 1,700 cliches. In academic terms, this requires an asterisk. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Shakespeare represents the first recorded usage for these terms. Because his plays were cultural milestones and well-preserved, he is often credited with “coinage” where he may have simply been the first to put common street-slang into print.
Shakespeare’s Linguistic Mechanics
He didn’t just invent sounds; he hacked the language using three specific techniques:
- Neologisms: Entirely new concepts (eyeball, lonely, swagger).
- Functional Shifts: Turning nouns into verbs (e.g., “to gossip”).
- Compound Mastery: Fusing existing words (lackluster, skim milk).
Why These Phrases Stale-Dated
Why does a phrase like “a heart of gold” or “wild-goose chase” feel tired today? It’s a victim of its own success. For 400 years, Shakespeare was the bedrock of English education. When a writer needed to describe a hopeless search, the “wild-goose chase” was so vivid and perfectly calibrated that the language simply adopted it as a default setting. When a phrase becomes the default, it loses its ability to surprise the reader. It becomes invisible.
Crushing the Bard?
For the modern author, the challenge is distinct. While we respect the Shakespearean origin, our “crush-first” methodology remains ruthless. Using “green-eyed monster” in a 2026 thriller doesn’t make the prose sound classical; it makes it sound unoriginal. We aim for the precision he originally intended—by finding the new metaphor that captures the moment as effectively as he did in 1600. We challenge writers to come up with their own original phrases that will become cliches in the distant future. Bard on!
References
Crystal, D. (2008). Think on My Words: Exploring Shakespeare’s Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Garner, B. A. (2016). Garner’s Modern English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Oxford English Dictionary. (2024). Shakespeare’s Words and the OED. Oxford University Press Online.
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. (2025). Shakespeare’s Influence on Contemporary English. Stratford-upon-Avon.
Wells, S., & Taylor, G. (2005). William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press.