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Myth-busting?: We keep hearing people say that Shakespeare is responsible for these cliches, implying that he created them all. I don't think that is necessarily true for all of these phrases. Shakespeare may well have been the one who used them in print for the first time but it is entirely possible that these are phrases that were already entrenched in the spoken language but had yet to appear in print. Yes, we can thank Shakespeare for preserving these phrases but not necessarily for creating them. Same goes for words that Shakespeare is said to have invented. Of course, we have no way of proving this other than to say that we know that even today we hear new words and phrases long before they appear in print.