wake up and smell the coffee (1943)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

OED draft additions from Sep. 2004 include "wake up and smell the coffee",
with a first cite of 1955 from an Ann Landers column. Though Landers was
chiefly responsible for popularizing the phrase, an antedating from 1943
was recently noted by Richard Fontana on alt.usage.english:

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1943 _Chicago Daily Tribune_ 18 Jan. 17/2 A few years back, when a wife
told her husband to "wake up and smell the coffee," it usually was said in
utter derision. Now, when there is coffee to smell, she shouts it to him
in supreme delight.
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?RQT=309&VName=HNP&did=471327012
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Brian Wickham also recalls the use of the expression in the 1949 movie
_Champion_.


--Ben Zimmer