# "What the dickens", Mr. Adams? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [December 3, 2006, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-dickens-mr-adams/382703 "2006-12-03T17:27:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bulusun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a6a055/32.png) [@bulusun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bulusun)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-dickens-mr-adams/382703/1 "2006-12-03T17:27:45Z")
You never answered the question, Mr. Adams. It comes from Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor…“I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of.” ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-dickens-mr-adams/382703/2 "2006-12-03T17:37:39Z")
[Here’s](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_263.html) a link to the column in question. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-dickens-mr-adams/382703/3 "2006-12-03T19:15:22Z")
Just because it appears in _MWW_ doesn’t mean it “comes from” _MWW_. The passage in question is a bit of straight-up prose dialog in which it would be most unlikely for Shakespeare to go to the effort of making up an original idiom. The odds are overwhelming in favor of it already being current in the spoken language. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-dickens-mr-adams/382703/4 "2006-12-03T19:38:34Z")
Just to back up what **John** just said, Michael Quinion says much the same: > [@](#): > > The first person known to use it was that great recorder of Elizabethan expressions, William Shakespeare, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: “FORD: Where had you this pretty weathercock? MRS PAGE: I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of”. That pun relied on the audience knowing that Dickens was a personal name and that what the dickens was a mild oath which called on the Devil. from [Like the Dickens: Devil Euphemism Origin](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-dic3.htm) If Shakespeare had “invented” that phrase, the audience would not have been able to understand the joke. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-dickens-mr-adams/382703/5 "2006-12-03T20:20:50Z")
Are you sure that’s a pun? I’m usually one to laugh at obsolete jokes, but unless it was established in the play that Dickens is actually the name of the man who sold Mr. Page the weathercock, it seems pretty weak to me. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-dickens-mr-adams/382703/6 "2006-12-03T20:56:36Z")
It’s not a real weathercock, but a boy, and the boy was sent by Sir John Falstaff, so if it’s a pun on Dickens-the-name it is only a weak one involving the collocation of the word “name” in the sentence.