So, I made one of those TWSS wisecracks earlier today (if you must know, a friend of mine boasted about leveling up at Wordle by saying “these days I find myself finishing faster and faster!”, which walked right into the proverbial “it”).
And then I semi-apologized by saying, “sorry, but I’m still basically 16 years old at heart.”
Then I reflected, nah, I’m pretty sure I heard TWSS type humor a bit earlier, like since I was 13 or 14?
And then then I reflected, well duh, that’s about the age for that type of crude, sexual reference type humor to start. Not that it started in the early 1980s, when I was that age…
…or was it? I have no way of knowing, do I?
Just how old IS this joke? Is there a known source?
The usual etymological research relies on written/published use, but this is definitely the sort of thing that would start off orally and go on for a long time before progressing on (…TWSS!).
Alternatively, the response is completely portable across languages - how common is this to say in French, Spanish, etc., and in what turn of phrase?
Or do we have an epigram of Martial from Ancient Rome where he drops HOC ILLA QUOD DIXIT?
I don’t recall this from even when I was an undergraduate – I don’t think it’s that old.
Using Google N-gram, I find a sharp increase starting about 1980. The phrase occurs before then, but I suspect it’s a non-joke “innocent” use of the phrase without the implied risque double entendre.
This website claims that it sorta appears in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1929 film Blackmail, but that its first undeniable appearance in print was circa 1973. That’s close enough to the 1980 figure I give. It does, though, state the phrase as if it existed well before its use in print.
In the 70’s I worked with a guy (age about 40) who’d immigrated to the US from Ireland in the early 60’s. He was full of bon mots, his most often used one being “That’s what the bishop said to the actress.” Yes, the reverse of what the wiki link refers to, but equally versatile in a hee-hee-naughty way.
Nice, I do remember coming across “that’s what the actress said to the bishop” and variants thereof involving bishops or other “female professional name”, but it always felt stilted and old-fashioned, versus the edgy/racy intonation of TWSS.
I do remember Wayne’s World and The Office doing this a lot in the 1990s, but it was something already familiar to me by then. Steve Martin popularizing it in the later 1970s makes sense to me.
And hot diggity, I always thought this lyric from the 1979 Joe Jackson song “Sunday Papers” was a reference to some current events known from British tabloids - apparently it was just an expression!
Mother doesn’t go out anymore, Just sits at home and rolls her spastic eyes But every weekend through the door Come words of wisdom from the world outside
If you want to know 'bout the bishop and the actress, If you want to know how to be a star If you want to know 'bout the stains on the mattress, You can read it in the Sunday papers
It was bog-standard high school boy to boy BS when I was in HS 1972-1976 in SoCal. It didn’t seem then like some new invention, although it was new to me as I aged into the leering elbow-in-ribs joking of pubescent males.
Raquel Welch when Harvey Keitel was making a pass at her in Mother, Jugs, and Speed -
“They don’t call me Speedy for nothing.”
“Well, let’s hope they don’t call you Speedy for everything.”
A variant I’ve heard if some woman walks right into it a good double entendre…
“I bet you say that to all the guys”
I vaguely recall Leslie Charteris in The Saint stories making the “bishop and actress” comment a few times.
It was a popular thing when I was in high school, circa 1977 to 1979. The SNL and Chevy Chase reference given above may have made it more popular in my friend group.