Opinion: Refudiate This: Sarah Gets Shakespeare

(July 19) -- My friend and grad school adviser Stanley Fish sent shock waves through the blogosphere when he praised Sarah Palin's book. "I wouldn't count myself a fan in the sense of being a supporter," he wrote in a review, still "I found it compelling and very well done." Given the howls of objections that Fish received, I feel some trepidation in weighing in on the current flap over Palin's use of the word "refudiate" in a recent tweet.

The former Alaska governor wrote: "Ground Zero Mosque supporters, doesn't it stab you in the heart as it does our throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, please refudiate." Critics quickly recognized that Palin had garbled the words "refute" and "repudiate" to create a new word: "refudiate." And in her defense Palin then tweeted: "English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words."

Well, Palin's about half right, which is probably more right than English professors tut-tutting her.

The idea that Shakespeare coined X number of new words -- a claim English teachers love to make -- is really just an artifact of how the venerable Oxford English Dictionary was put together. As detailed in Simon Winchester's "The Professor and the Madman," the OED features entries that include the earliest example of a word, so that its changing meaning could be understood via context.

It is no surprise that the writers of the OED would seek examples in the most famous archive available in English -- often Shakespeare. But that doesn't mean Shakespeare coined those words. Indeed, graduate students in literature often built resumes off of locating earlier instances of words "credited" to Shakespeare in the OED.

More importantly, if you think about it, Shakespeare would have little interest in inventing words in his plays. He was seeking to entertain. Why would he have his characters use words that no one in the audience would know? Shakespeare's plays are a repository of words that reflect the vocabulary of the day -- he is not some forerunner of today's avant-garde language poet.

But having said that, there are exceptions. The most obvious examples are comic characters who entertain through their use of malapropisms -- the misuse of language, most commonly involving the use of one word that sounds like the intended word but has a different (and often opposite or risque) meaning. Shakespeare resorted to it often.

The night watchman Dogberry in "Much Ado About Nothing" is perhaps his most famous example. For example, Dogberry states, "our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two aspicious persons." He means, of course, that he has apprehended two suspicious persons.

Taken comically, Palin's use of "refudiate" is a good instance of the kind of coining Shakespeare did do with characters like Dogberry. Even though the word doesn't exist, we get the point.

There are similar instances in serious contexts in Shakespeare. Take, for example, this vivid image from "Macbeth": "he unseamed him from the nave to th' chops." This description of cutting a man in two is unforgettable. Yet nowhere else in Shakespeare does the word appear.

Shakespeare's audience was familiar with the notion that men are made of guts, or seam. So when Macbeth is described as "unseaming" his opponent, play-goers could make sense of what may very well have been a new word in a powerful, visceral way. Macbeth split that man's guts.

If Sarah Palin scares you, then perhaps you see her chopping and splicing the language in way that is similar to what Shakespeare makes us see in Macbeth. Or, if you find her to be a clown, then her use of words is closer to Dogberry.

One thing is for sure, though, she does indeed coin words, and in just the way Shakespeare does: She takes familiar words and twists them.

But it is up to us to decide if she is (or will be) a character in a comedy or in a tragedy.