Neither here nor there

This 16th century phrase is often wrongly attributed to William Shakespeare. The first use of it in print that I know of is in Arthur Golding’s translation of The sermons of J. Calvin upon Deuteronomie, 1583:

“True it is that our so dooing is neither here nor there (as they say) in respect of God.”

The ‘as they say’ in that quotation suggests an earlier origin.

Shakespeare did use the phrase ‘neither here nor there’, but later, in Othello, 1616.

See also, hither and yon.