The stories we tell about the history of English are shaped as much by what was burned, thrown away, or eaten by worms as by what anyone actually wrote.

Beowulf barely survived into the modern period: it comes down to us in a single, slightly scorched manuscript.

The problem extended well into the Elizabethan period. Scholars estimate that nearly half of the printed books, 82% of plays, and over 99% of the broadside ballads of the era have been lost to history.

We like to imagine we know what the Elizabethans wrote. We have Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the King James Bible. It feels like a rich archive, but it’s a mere fraction of what once existed. And the stories we tell about Elizabethan English are mostly stories about what happened to survive.

One of these stories is the claim that Shakespeare invented around 1,700 words.

The full piece traces where this story comes from: a Victorian concordance, the streetlight effect, and the slow correction happening inside the OED's own third edition.