[Lexicog] Re: Bees Wax

[mal_tournee]

Could be that Shakespeare's use in Henry VI is taken as two words (the apostrophe, the sentence structure, and even  the meter may support this as the emphasis is on "wax" [vs. "sting") and not yet "lexicalized." 

--- In lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com, "bolstar1" <bolstar1 at ...> wrote:
>
> I have a question for anyone who might know why the OED, Random House, Merriam (dictionary & "Coined by Shakespeare" Merriam) don't list Shakespeare as having coined the word/phrase "bees-wax" or "mind your own bees wax." I know that everyone in Elizabethan times knew where wax for officially sealing various correspondences came from, but coinage being what is is (the first recorded use of a term/expression) it's puzzling that  the first listing in OED (online) lists the first use in 1676 -- MOXON Print lett. 12 "You may rub your stone over with little Bees Wax."; Merriam lists 1664, Random lists 1670). 
>      Yet II Henry VI 4.2.81-84 (1590-91) reads, "Some say the bee stings, but I say, 'tis the bee's wax: for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since."  I must be not be able to see the Amazon jungle for the trees. 
> 
> Scott N.
>




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