Pin the rose on

Posted by Smokey Stover on October 17, 2005

In Reply to: Pin the rose on posted by ESC on October 16, 2005

: : Pin the rose on someone, has been used to indicate that someone has the task or assignement. Any ideas of the origin?

: I googled the phrase and it seem that it meant to assign blame to someone. Still looking for the origin.

Neither of the above. Most common usage is in, "Mother, pin a rose on me," sometimes without "Mother," used sarcastically or facetiously to mean "Yeah, I did good. Sure." This implies that to pin a rose on someone was at some time or in some place a reward for something, like placing first or just being good. But I don't know if that was ever the practice or not. I think the sarcastic remark can stand by itself. SS