I understand that if someone tells someone to ‘get smart’ (Jewish phrase), he’s saying, ‘You’re being an idiot. Look at the situation like you’re n intelligent person.’ (More or less.) I’m not Jewish, but I get the joke with the TV series title. Is the phrase still in use, more than half a century later?
I did not know that!
And I’m sure you know this, but the title was a play on what a KAOS officer woud say to an agent ordered to whack Maxwell Smart.
I’ve been around and with Jews from NYC all my life and haven’t heard the phrase. My folks spoke a lot of Yiddish and it’s not something common. I was watching TV during the last few seasons of the show and I was unaware of that connection.
Do you have evidence that the phrase was ever in common use or has Jewish origins?
Only that I have only heard the line being uttered by a Jewish person from New York to another Jewish person from New York, in one move or another. As Mel Brooks was a producer (with Buck Henry), the title seems an obvious play.
I’m Jewish. My entire family is from Brooklyn. I have lots of close Jewish friends. I have never heard that phrase in my life.
You heard the phrase once more than fifty years ago and assumed that it is and/or was a common Jewish phrase?
I think it’s just another snappy way of saying “wise up”. Never heard of it being a Jewish thing, despite growing up in a Jewish family in a Jewish community.
That doesn’t make it a Jewish phrase. I’m surprised you’d draw such a conclusion.
“Be a smarty” on the other hand…
“Smarten up!” was a (non-Jewish) phrase I heard as a kid.
Didn’t Mel Brooks sing
Don’t be stupid, be a smarty
come and join the Nazi party
…in “Springtime for Hitler”?
Yes, hence the reference above.
Maybe because of Get Carter (which came later) I thought the title Get Smart was a play on the title of an earlier spy film or novel (I can’t identify one, though). In the literal sense, I’m not even sure if it refers to an order from KAOS (“kill Max Smart”) or the Chief (“tell Max I have a mission for him”)
I have heard that one should “wise up”, “smarten up” (this could refer to your wardrobe), “cop on”, and so forth, but these were not quotes from the Book of Zohar nor were the speakers particularly Jewish. Is it not a universal sentiment?
I hadn’t thought about that meaning.
Not to bring politics into it, but that reminds me of the documentary Get Me Roger Stone - Wikipedia. FWIW one of the filmmakers (Daniel DiMauro) is from Brooklyn.
I think the question should be, “Was ‘get smart’ a common phrase, Jewish or not, before the 1960s TV show of the same name?” Sometimes a popular phrase falls into disuse because it becomes associated with a film or book that exposes it to a mainstream audience, like “duck soup” or “lord love a duck.” It stops being cool when outsiders know about it too. You could probably have gotten away with saying “g’day” to fellow Americans before Crocodile Dundee ruined its snob appeal.
Jewish, and I grew up in NY, and my grandparents lived in Brooklyn. Never heard it before the show aired. Maybe it is a phrase in Yiddish?
Google ngrams shows that the phrase “get smart” has been used in books since the early 1800s at least. There was a steady rise in usage between about 1920 and 1950. Interestingly, the appearance of the TV show in 1965 doesn’t seem to have any significant influence on how frequently the phrase was used.
I think the imperative phrase is usually used in the negative (“Don’t get smart”), in this sense. Which is likely what the title of the show is playing on.
And a newspaper database search finds numerous uses, especially in advertising of the sort “Get Smart. Buy From Us”.
Interspersed are also many “don’t get smart” with me comments.
No question, though, that the dual meaning of “Get” in relation to Maxwell Smart was the joke. Like everybody else I’ve never heard this as a Jewish expression.