You are probably on to something here.
I disagree. I think it was used in the positive sense for the show title. Maxwell Smart got to his position as top spy by succeeding, even if he was dumb bumbler. The title “Get Smart” was a just a play on “wise up”, not “don’t be a wise ass”.
I’m still wondering why hearing this phrase said in a movie many years ago by someone Jewish means this is “a Jewish phrase.”
I agree it was used in the positive sense in the show title. But I think the expression itself could be both.
I remember authority figures snarling, “Don’t get smart with me!”
“The expression could be both” doesn’t make sense to me. They’re separate expressions that happen to share two words, but those words have a completely different, unrelated definition in each expression.
The words “get smart” are in both phrases, but telling someone to “get smart” means telling them to wise up. Telling someone “don’t get smart” means don’t be a smart ass. One is not the negative of the other.
I can’t find any evidence from Google Ngram that “get smart” comes from Yiddish or is particularly Jewish. Incidentally, do you know that the television series Get Smart was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry? Brooks is of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Henry’s father was of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, but his mother wasn’t.
Because it was uttered by a Jewish character. (Not in the TV series.)
Another Jew
To whom it’s new
But I’m not doubting
The word of you
Another Jew who never heard of this being a “Jewish phrase” before.
I have heard the phrase before, but never associated it with a particular entho-religious identity.
??
That’s… a really odd thing to think.
Whatever. My question has been answered.
That’s the only way I ever heard it and does not seem to be used especially by Jews.
Found an example of the positive imperative, in the sense of “wise up”. This is from the comic book Captain Confederacy #3, 1986.
I was never sure exactly what Get Christy Love! meant.
- Boss saying “Get Christy Love on this case”
- Villains saying “Get Christy Love before she busts us”
- Producers saying “Get a load of Christy Love! Ain’t she something?”
Eve saying Get Christie Love a Coffin!
Everything was love in those days so this is probably a coincidence, but…
In 1966, George Baxt published the first mystery about an openly gay police detective, who was also black. His name was Pharoah Love. (Yes, deliberately misspelled.) The title of the book was “A Queer Kind of Death.” Queer in the mainstream world meant simply “strange” in 1966, but the double entendre made the book a cult classic for decades.
I remember they had on the show an android robot who took commands too literally. When they were sending him on an assignment, the chief said “Now take off!” and he began to flap his arms as though he could fly like a bird. I was certain that his name was Jaime, but later found out it was Hymie, and even later than that found out it was used as an anti-Jewish slur because it had been a common Jewish name. And then I read The Education of H⁎Y⁎M⁎A⁎N K⁎A⁎P⁎L⁎A⁎N.
Hymie was named after the inventor’s father or grandfather, I forget which.
Hymie was played by actor Dick Gautier. Strange connection: his son Rand Gautier is the person who stole the Tommy Lee / Pamela Anderson sex tape from their home in 1995 and published it.
Please reassure me I’m not the first person to confuse Hymie with Jaime.