# What's the origin of the phrase "Tennis, anyone?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 29, 2003, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-tennis-anyone/198417 "2003-08-29T13:34:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Vlad\_M.Paler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d26b3c/32.png) [@Vlad\_M.Paler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vlad_M.Paler)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-tennis-anyone/198417/1 "2003-08-29T13:34:42Z")
Is this from some literary source? ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-tennis-anyone/198417/2 "2003-08-29T13:40:59Z")
Tradition holds that Humphrey Bogart had the line in a play early in his career, but I don’t recall if it is true or not. It has been awhile since I read the latest biography on him, and the book is packed away for an upcoming move. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-tennis-anyone/198417/3 "2003-08-29T13:46:24Z")
I thought it was ‘anyone for tennis?’ Sounds like it might be P G Wodehouse or Agatha Christie or something. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-tennis-anyone/198417/4 "2003-08-29T13:56:54Z")
Could have originated there, but it’s most associated with a(n unconfirmed) story about Bogey. I found this photo, though. And the thought of a young Bogey saunteringly skipping around, elbow raised, racquet bobbing around, with a mirthful “Tennis, anyone?” is kinda intriguing. [![](http://bogart-tribute.net/images3/nonfilm/tennis.jpg) ](http://bogart-tribute.net/images3/nonfilm/tennis.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-tennis-anyone/198417/6 "2003-08-29T14:11:15Z")
A lot of guesswork going on here. This is the closest I could find to a definitive source, from _Brewer’s Dicitonary of Modern Phrase & Fable_ (a very useful book!): > [@](#): > > **Anyone for tennis**? A general query based on what is regarded as a typical line iin a 1920s drawing-room comedy and uttered by a well-dressed young man entering the room carrying a tennis racket. The precise provenance of the phrase is uncertain, although it has a clear pre-echo in GB Shaw’s play _Misalliance_ (1910) in which one of the characters, Johnny Tartleton, a young businessman, rises from a swinging chair and asks the assembled company, “Anybody on for a game of tennis?” > > The phrase was adopted as the title of a 1968 television play by JB Priestley and was pastiched in John Wells’s farce _Anyone for Denis_ (1981), guying Margaret Thatcher’s husband. I think we can rule out Bogey, since he was ony 11 in 1910. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-tennis-anyone/198417/7 "2003-08-29T16:40:28Z")
Humphey Bogart got his start on the stage in the 1920s, playing “well dressed young men entering a room carrying a tennis racket” and similar characters in drawing room comedies. I’ll see if I can find the reference to his first role. His career was in the doldrums until he aged and started playing heavier characters. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2003, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-tennis-anyone/198417/8 "2003-08-29T19:00:45Z")
In the _Dictionary of Misinformation_, Tom Burnam says that Bogart always denied he uttered the line. ---
**Author:** ![slipster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@slipster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slipster)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2003, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-tennis-anyone/198417/9 "2003-08-30T22:23:51Z")
Some years ago a local station in St. Louis broadcast a series of Humphrey Bogart films in the early a.m., titling the package “Bogie all night”. At station breaks a snippet of an interview with Humphrey Bogart was played. In it he said (I don’t claim to have the exact phrasing): "(t)here are two things I never said: ‘tennis, anyone?’ and ‘all right Louie, drop the gun’. **Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations** used to credit the phrase to Bogart, with the notation that it was his only line in his first stage role. No one has yet addressed the _point_ of the line. Having a person run in and say something of this kind was a cliche device for clearing the stage so that the leading man and the ingenue could be left alone to sing a love song or whatever. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-origin-of-the-phrase-tennis-anyone/198417/10 "2003-08-31T01:21:27Z")
If you are asking where the **exact** phrase “tennis, anyone?” first appears, Barry Popik has posted over at the ADS list a cite from 1951. That’s the earliest _so far_. The posters who have offered the cites from early comedies are no doubt correct about the phrase having its roots in earlier play devices.