Our English word "innocent" derives from the Latin verb nocēre, to do harm. It originally referred to someone who did no harm. By Shakespeare’s time “innocent” had taken on its additional modern sense: someone young and naive. About the time Shakespeare was writing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the word “ninny’, short for innocent, came into use. It refers to someone who is naive, not because they are young, but because they are a simpleton, a fool. When Bottom refers to King Ninus’ tomb as “Ninny's tomb”, it’s as if he’s calling King Ninus a fool. But King Ninus was a great warrior who conquered all of the Middle East and much of western Asia; one thing he wasn’t was a fool.