Does anyone know the earliest documented/published usage of this expression or is it safe to assume it derives from Pulp Fiction?
Many thanks for any information, and I hope this is not too trivial a question for this esteemed resource (which has, incidentally, been most helpful in far weightier matters)
Since it doesn’t quite hold together grammatically, I’d assume it’s from Pulp Fiction.
When I first saw the movie, I thought, “Didn’t he mean, ‘Allow me to rebut’?” I think the line is a misstatement deliberately written into the script by Tarantino, to show that the characters aren’t always as smart as they think they are. You don’t have to “allow” someone to retort; they can do that whenever they want. “Allow me to rebut,” on the other hand, would put the discussion into the context of a more formal debate, in which one would “allow” an opponent to rebut. I think this is what Jules was going for, but he chose the wrong word.
It’s possible that someone said, “Allow me to retort” before Pulp Fiction came out, but it seemed like a perfectly-written, original line to me.