Lakes & apples

Posted by ESC on November 12, 1999

In Reply to: Go and jump in a lake posted by julie on November 11, 1999

: I saw an old movie with Paul Newman called, "From the Terrace" and I wondered if this character/person to ever utter this phrase. There was also another phrase in the same movie, "How do you like them apples?" and I wonder the same about this, too.

To tell someone to "Go jump in the lake" when you're angry with him or her dates back to 1912, according to Listening to America: An Illustrated History of Words and Phrases from Our Lively and Splendid Past by Stuart Berg Flexner. "How do you like them apples?" means "So there! What do you have to say now? What are you going to do about it? Used ironically since the late 1920s." according to the Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings by Gregory Y. Titelman.