Among writers quoted in the current edition of the OED, Dickens lags behind only Shakespeare, Scott, Chaucer, Milton, and Dryden for total number of citations (9,218). No one in the past two centuries comes close.

For many of these citations Dickens did not invent the word or phrase but provides the first widely published usage. 'Dustbin' was in existence before 'Dombey and Son' and boredom precedes Bleak House - but without these novels they may not have come into common usage.

Slang

Dickens was also one of the first writers to employ popular slang. His first novel The Pickwick Papers (1837) introduced butter-fingers ("a clumsy person"), flummox ("bewilder"). In modern British English they are what might be termed polite slang terms ('I was flummoxed by that question in the exam').

New Words

Another feature of Dickens use of language is the invention of words - most of these purely manufactured neologisms have not survived - thankfully comfoozled ("exhausted") never caught on. He had much more lasting success in converting adjectives to nouns: messy to messiness, for example.


New idioms

Linguistically this was where - not to put to fine a point on it (Mr Snagsby in Bleak House) - Dickens displays his genius. The phrase 'I've got his number' (meaning I understand how he's trying to fool us) has a very contemporary feel but again we can trace it back to the interminable legal machinations in Bleak House.

Character names

No novelist has been more inventive in this area. Dickens used names to evoke character: Scrooge, Mr Micawber, Uriah Heep, Oliver Twist, Fagin, Pecksniff and many more names still resonate in the language


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