牛津詞典有bug！這些短語不是莎士比亞發明的
Shakespeare didn't come up with most of the famous phrases in his plays but was credited with them because of a fault with the Oxford English dictionary, a leading scholar claims.
一位著名的學者稱，莎士比亞在他的作品中並沒有發明那些著名的短語，但是由於牛津詞典的錯誤，很多人相信這些短語是莎士比亞發明的。
Mr McInnis argues that it is actually the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) that has attributed the phrases to Shakespeare, but it is 'biased'.
麥金尼斯博士認爲事實上《牛津英語詞典》將這些短語歸功於莎士比亞，但是這是一種“偏見”。
'The Complete Works of Shakespeare was frequently raided for early examples of word use, even though words or phrases might have been used earlier, by less famous or less literary people,' he writes in the University of Melbourne magazine.
《莎翁全集》經常被拿來當做早期詞語用法的參考，儘管這些詞可能在更早之前被那些不是那麼有名，或者不是那麼具有文學性的人使用過了。
那麼究竟有哪些短語明明不是莎翁發明，卻把功勞歸於他了呢？我們來舉幾個例子：
'Its' all Greek to me,' which appears in playwright Robert Greene's The Scottish History of James The Fourth before in Julius Ceaser.
“如聞天書”在《凱撒大帝》之前就已經出現在羅伯特·格林的《蘇格蘭史：詹姆斯四世》中。
'A wild goose chase,' is credited as first appearing in Romeo and Juliet by the OED, but it had appeared at least six times in English poet Gervase Markham's book about horsemanship a few years earlier in 1593.
“徒勞無功”在《牛津英語詞典》中被認爲是第一次出現在《羅密歐與朱麗葉》裏，但是這個短語1593之前幾年就在英國詩人哲瓦斯·馬克漢姆有關於馬術的書中至少出現過6次。
'Eaten out of house and home' is thought to first appear in Henry IV part two, written in the 1590s, but examples from as early as 1578 have been found.
“食大如牛”被認爲第一次出現在《亨利四世》第二部分，寫於19世紀60年代，但是早於1578年就被發現有相關例子。
'Without rhyme or reason' was thought to come from As You Like it but earlier versions can be traced back to the 1400s.
“無緣無故”被認爲是出自莎士比亞的《皆大歡喜》，但是最早的版本可以追溯到14世紀。
However, Shakespeare is thought to have made them more 'concise' and 'catchy' did still invent most of his famous quotations, including 'to make an ass of oneself'.'His audiences had to understand at least the gist of what he meant, so his words were mostly in circulation already or were logical combinations of pre-existing concepts,' writes Dr McInnis.
但是莎士比亞也被認爲將這些詞變得更加“簡潔”和“郎朗上口”。他還發明瞭很多著名的語錄，比如“讓……看起來很蠢”。麥金尼斯博士寫道：“莎士比亞的讀者們必須要理解他到底在說什麼，所以他使用的詞語大部分一定早已流行開來，要麼就是一些現存概念的邏輯組合”。
