Blow smoke up someone's ass

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:47 AM -0400 7/29/09, Wilson Gray wrote:
>If merely "blow smoke" with the relevant meaning is the older form,
>it's really interesting to find that out. I didn't hear this
>expression used till, perhaps, the middle 'Fifties, and only in the
>form, "blow smoke up someone's ass." As a consequence, I've always
>considered the older, if such it be, form to be a euphemistic clip. It
>just goes to show one: one never knows, do one?
>
>IME, "blow smoke up someone's ass" is the only form used, except "in
>decent company."
>

For me, the "just" is pretty much essential--"he's/she's/you're just
blowing smoke".  No problem interpreting it in that form, even in
indecent company.

LH

>On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 8:00 PM, Douglas G. Wilson<douglas at nb.net> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
>>  Subject:      Re: Blow smoke up someone's ass
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  Michael Sheehan wrote:
>>>  Need to know the actual origin of "to blow smoke up someone's ass." The
>>>  story about 18th c. tobacco smoke enemas seems highly dubious, but it's
>>>  all over the place.
>>  --
>>
>>  These enemas really were applied, but it's questionable whether they
>>  have any relevance to the phrase origin in question. The sense
>>  development is not what one would expect, since the tobacco-smoke enema
>>  was intended for good ends, for reviving the drowned, curing intestinal
>>  ailments, etc., not for frivolous or deceptive purposes.
>>
>>  It seems to me that "blow smoke" usually means "bullshit" or "speak
>>  falsely/deceptively". Cassell slang dictionary says "confuse", "mystify
>>  through speech", "boast","brag", "flatter".
>>
>>  Is the form with "up [someone's] ass" the original form of the phrase,
>>  or was "blow smoke" alone the original form? The Cassell book dates the
>>  short form about 100 years earlier than the lengthened 'intensified'
>>  form with "ass", and this is plausible according to my naive notions,
>>  but I don't know what the evidence is, if any.
>>
>>  Assuming that the original was simply "blow smoke", various
>>  origin-candidates occur to me:
>>
>>  (1) "blow smoke" (like "produce a smokescreen") metaphoric for "confuse"
>>  or so;
>>
>  > (2) "[just] blowing smoke" = "producing [only] something
>>  useless/uninformative from one's mouth" (cf. "[just] whistling 'Dixie'");
>>
>>  (3) from the practice of blowing smoke to confuse/pacify bees.
>>
>>  Probably there are other candidates.
>>
>>  What does HDAS have?
>>
>>  -- Doug Wilson
>>
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>>  The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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>
>
>
>--
>-Wilson
>---
>All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>-----
>-Mark Twain
>
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