有位古典文學教授 Joel Christensen 針對領導統御與疫情控制寫了一篇以古喻今、相當深入的文章： “Plagues follow bad leadership in ancient Greek tales”
(March 12, 2020, The Conversation)
文中出現一些講法可用來翻譯中文的流行語：
In the fifth century B.C., the playwright Sophocles begins Oedipus Tyrannos (伊底帕斯) with the title character struggling to identify the cause of a plague striking his city, Thebes. (Spoiler alert: It’s his own bad leadership.)
作者提到 Oedipus 想找出瘟疫何以降臨他的城邦的緣由，加了一句：(破梗：領導無方)。Spoiler alert 就是「破梗」。
Plague stories provide settings where fate pushes human organization to the limit. Human leaders are almost always crucial to the causal sequence, as Zeus observes in Homer’s “Odyssey,” saying, as I’ve translated it, “Humans are always blaming the gods for their suffering/but they experience pain beyond their fate because of their own recklessness.” 人類自作孽招來禍端，卻總是怨天尤人，「甩鍋」給眾神。
The problems humans create go beyond just plagues: The poet Hesiod writes that the top Greek god, Zeus, showed his disapproval for bad leaders by burdening them with military failures as well as pandemics. The consequences of human failings are a refrain (一再出現) in the ancient critique of leaders, with or without plagues: The “Iliad,” for instance, describes rulers who “ruin their people through recklessness.” The “Odyssey” phrases it as “bad shepherds ruin their flocks.”
CNN 以下這則報導裡的 shift blame 可譯為「甩鍋」，blame game 則可譯成 「互相甩鍋」。
Blame game escalates between US and China over coronavirus disinformation.
Mar 25, 2020 ·CNN
Tensions have been brewing for weeks between Washington and Beijing over who is to blame for the outbreak. China continues to deny that the virus originated there while top US officials … have pointed the finger directly at Beijing.
…Trump has struck a more critical tone of late regarding Beijing's handling of the outbreak and efforts to shift blame (甩鍋) onto the US.
此外，spread the blame, pass the buck, buck passing 也都可譯成「甩鍋」，請看以下例句：
"in the past you could spread the blame, but now the buck stops here" (Oxford)
從前你可以「甩鍋」給別人，今後自己扛。
Good Risk Management Means No Buck-Passing (Harvard Business Review)
好的危機管理就是不搞「甩鍋」。
She's always trying to pass the buck and I'm sick of it! (Cambridge)
她老愛搞「甩鍋」，我受夠了！ (Jerome Su, April 26, 2020, Revised 4/27/20)