What’s the origin of the phrase ‘Elementary my dear Watson’?
In fact the line doesn’t appear in the Conan Doyle books, only later in Sherlock Holmes’ films.
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One of the best known phrases that Sherlock Holmes never said.
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He does come rather close at a few of points. Holmes says “Elementary” in ‘The Crooked Man’, and “It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I assure you” in ‘The Cardboard Box’. He also says “Exactly, my dear Watson, in three different stories.
The phrase was first used by P. G. Wodehouse, in Psmith Journalist, 1915.