"no strings attached"

[Mullins, Bill]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Douglas G. Wilson
>Sent: Tue 4/19/2005 11:02 PM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject:      Re: "no strings attached"
>
>I surely doubt it.

Like I said, "purported".

Probably the most that one can take from the claim is that tailors believe this is the origin of the phrase.  From reading the blog in question, it is apparent that there is much "handed down" in the trade (at least at the Saville Row level), and folk etymology is part of what is handed down, even if wrong.