When Shakespeare talk of “Much ado about nothing” — the title of his play and also (much later) two movies, 1993 and 2012 — nothing refers to gossip and rumors. In the play, nothing not only made Claudio reject Hero on the day of their wedding day, it also forced Benedick and Beatrice to confess their love for each other.
(image credit: Wired/Joss Whedon)
Today, nothing refers to, well, nothing, and the idiom has come to equate “all that fuss over nothing.” Somehow, I’ve managed to take counter-productivity to a new level in my attempt to move to my new apartment with as few boxes as possible.