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Tell it to (or) talk to the hand

Posted by ESC on October 04, 2001

Someone just asked me about the origin and meaning of "tell it to the hand." He had read a description of this morning's stock market, from Yahoo: 12:00PM ET If you've got bad news, tell it to the hand because the market doesn't want to hear it... Thus far, it is clear that the market ..... "tell it to the hand?" whazzat?

A similar phrase, "talk to the hand," was discussed in December 2000 but I don't think we came to a conclusion. A few years back I saw a "talk to the hand" T-shirt with a stick figure with a raised hand. And sitcom characters were using the expression about the same time. Example, a character on a TV sit-com is tired of her boss blathering. She raises her palm and says "talk to the hand." Roughly translated: shut up.

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