Talk:much ado about nothing

Deletion debate

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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much ado about nothing

SOP.​—msh210℠ (talk) 07:36, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Keep, probably. Meaning is not entirely obvious from the sum of its parts. Mainly because ado is almost never used outside this phrase in contemporary English. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:44, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

...but when it is, it has the meaning it has here. So the meaning is the SOP meaning. No?​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:32, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not especially rare, though it has been substantially displaced by to-do/to do, at least in American English over the last 200 years. In COCA ado appears 390 times, of which 140 are in "much ado about nothing". That would not yet make ado obsolete. Delete. DCDuring TALK 22:58, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Keep. It's a set phrase. ---> Tooironic 23:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Keep. Let's not get obsessed with deleting SoP, if they are idiomatic, set phrases, etc. --Anatoli 01:00, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Keep unless you have an explanation for the hits at google books:"lot of much ado about nothing" that doesn't depend on "much ado about nothing" being its own thing. —Ruakh_TALK 01:38, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Hm, keep, then, I guess — but surely with a modified definition?​—msh210℠ (talk) 03:10, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

And add the obvious etymology. SemperBlotto 08:12, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Keep per once upon a time test. DAVilla 12:26, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

google books:"much ado about" gets 152 000 hits on Google Books, while google books:"much ado about nothing" gets 127 000 hits. "lots of ado about", "loads of ado about", "tons ado about", and "tonnes of ado about" get all of zero hits combined. So at the absolute worst it's a very common collocation, per per WT:CFI#Idiomaticity I don't think it's 'easy' to derive the meaning from the parts. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:35, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I disagree somewhat on the last part. It's easy to derive the meaning if you know that ado means "fuss". Like once upon a time, it's archaic syntactically. I agree much more strongly with your statement that "ado is almost never used outside this phrase in contemporary English", explaining the hits you and DCDuring mention. Anyways, someone else keep it already. DAVilla 08:56, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

RFD passed. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:56, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

The alternative form "much adoe about nothing"

This is an older spelling of the name of Shakespeare's play. It's hard to search for other sources using it. Equinox ◑ 19:50, 10 July 2016 (UTC)