Said the actress to the bishop
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"Said the actress to the bishop", or "as the actress said to the bishop" is an informal (and occasionally vulgar) exclamation, usually said for humour after an inadvertent use of a double entendre. For example, if someone says "That's a big one", another could add "...as the actress said to the bishop!", or if someone says, "Squeeze hard on the down stroke", one could reply "...as the bishop said to the actress!"
It is said in the style of a punch line, comically implying that the original double entendre was merely the second-from-last line in a long, rude joke. On occasion, the term is swapped when appropriate to "said the bishop to the actress", or "as the bishop said to the actress".
The phrase is an example of a Wellerism, a literal "turn" of a phrase, changing its meaning.
Whether an original joke existed involving an actress and a bishop is not known.
History and background
The term may have been used as far back as Edwardian times, and is rarely used in the United States, apparently deriving from British use. One poster on the Phrases.org.uk website claimed that the phrase was "Certainly in RAF use c. 1944-7, but probably going back to Edwardian days; only very slightly obsolete by 1975, it is likely to outlive most of us".[1]
The phrase is frequently used (in various contexts) by the fictional character Simon Templar (alias "The Saint") in a long-running series of mystery books by Leslie Charteris[2]. The phrase first appears in the inaugural Saint novel Meet - The Tiger! which was published in 1928.
More-recent repopularisation
The phrase has been repopularised by Ricky Gervais as character David Brent in the British television series The Office. In the American version of that series, a similar phrase, worded "that's what she said", was also repopularised by Steve Carell's character Michael Scott, the program's counterpart to Brent. That phrase has been around since at least the 1970s and was a regular punch line in the recurring Wayne's World sketches on the American television series Saturday Night Live in the early 1990s.
See also
- That's what she said (the American version of the phrase)
References
- ^ Partridge, Eric. A Dictionary of Catch Phrases.
- ^ One example can be seen here.
External links
- Veitch, Harriet (editor) (August 6, 2005). "Why Do People Have an "Audience" with a King but Only a "Meeting" with a President?". The Sydney Morning Herald. Accessed April 27, 2010.
- "Prince Charles Down Under (as the actress said to the bishop)" April 2005, Eric Shackle
- Williams, Tryst (February 12, 2005). "What Did the Actress Really Say to the Bishop?". Western Mail. Accessed April 27, 2010.
- Phrases.org.uk discussion of the topic
- "Idiom: As the actress said to the bishop" UsingEnglish.com