Ok but did you read the wiki? It might be that the wiki is lacking the referenced quote, which doesnt necessarily discredit the post. Did Shakespeare not write it?
From the Wiki it seems as many popular phrases are the provenance of the saying is ambiguous and this one traces back to even just "Jack of all Trades." It isn't so simple to accurately define the origin in such a case.
its-summertime · 7h ago
Quoting the relevant part of the wiki page, which does have the referenced quote:
> The phrase with the "master of none" element is sometimes expanded into a less unflattering couplet with the second line: "but oftentimes better than a master of one" (or variants thereof), with some sources stating that such a couplet is the "original" version, with the second line having been dropped. Online discussions attempting to find instances of this second line dated to before the twenty-first century have resulted in no response, however.
I don't think Shakespeare wrote it. It is also noted that the prerequisite "master of none"'s first known usage came about well after the death of Shakespeare.
sans_souse · 7h ago
thank you for expanding
LegionMammal978 · 7h ago
> Did Shakespeare not write it?
No. Shakespeare wrote nothing of the sort, at least not in his surviving works. (You can just search for it [0].)
Also, the "better than a master of one" version is most likely a modern invention, given its apparently-complete absence among 20th-century books [1]. (In contrast, real sayings tend to show up all over the place, with how much old almanacs and magazines loved using them to fill space.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_of_all_trades
From the Wiki it seems as many popular phrases are the provenance of the saying is ambiguous and this one traces back to even just "Jack of all Trades." It isn't so simple to accurately define the origin in such a case.
> The phrase with the "master of none" element is sometimes expanded into a less unflattering couplet with the second line: "but oftentimes better than a master of one" (or variants thereof), with some sources stating that such a couplet is the "original" version, with the second line having been dropped. Online discussions attempting to find instances of this second line dated to before the twenty-first century have resulted in no response, however.
I don't think Shakespeare wrote it. It is also noted that the prerequisite "master of none"'s first known usage came about well after the death of Shakespeare.
No. Shakespeare wrote nothing of the sort, at least not in his surviving works. (You can just search for it [0].)
Also, the "better than a master of one" version is most likely a modern invention, given its apparently-complete absence among 20th-century books [1]. (In contrast, real sayings tend to show up all over the place, with how much old almanacs and magazines loved using them to fill space.)
[0] https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/100/pg100-images.html
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=better+than+a+master+of+one&...
It's both a good article and a good post.