A Method to the Madness

Coined by Shakespeare in Hamlet (c.1600). Polonius, watching Hamlet's strange behaviour and dialogue, mutters to himself, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't," concluding that Hamlet's apparent insanity is calculated rather than genuine. In the play, Hamlet is deliberately feigning madness to investigate his father's murder without arousing suspicion, making Polonius's observation exactly right, if for reasons Polonius himself never guesses. The phrase has drifted slightly from "method in" to the modern "method to" over the centuries.