The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson writes a very interesting article almost a year ago dispelling the age old myth about the origins of the phrase"May you live in interesting times"
As Mr. Robinson wrote on November 27th, 2008: "May you live in interesting times" is supposed to be an ancient Chinese curse, but I can't find evidence that the saying is Chinese at all, much less that it's ancient. One of the earliest reliable citations seems to be a 1950 short story by the British science-fiction author Eric Frank Russell, writing under the pen name Duncan H. Munro, who quotes the imprecation and then adds: "It isn't a curse any more. It's a blessing."
