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Put that in your pipe and smoke it

Posted by ESC on June 10, 2004

In Reply to: Put that in your pipe and smoke it posted by Dave on June 10, 2004

: I would to know the origin of the phrase Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT -- "Make what you can of what I've just said!; Digest that, if you can!; Put up with (or tolerate) that -- if you can!; since early C19. Peake, 1824; Dickens in 'Pickwick Papers'; 'Ingoldsby' Barham: Miss Mary Braddon (1837-1915), the now forgotten bestseller of late C19...It's a fact worth noting: that, despite its continuous currency and continual - indeed, constant - use, very little attention has been paid to this phrase, which is, I'd say, rather more of a c.p. (catchphrase) than of a proverbial saying. And, by the way, it derives from the very widely held, not entirely erroneous, belief that pipe-smoking and meditation go together..." From Dictionary of Catch Phrases: American and British, from the Sixteenth Century to the Present Day by Eric Partridge, updated and edited by Paul Beal, Scarborough House, Lanham, Md., 1992).

I like the Mickey Mouse version: Put that in your smoke and pipe it!

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