[Ads-l] "And tell 'em * sent you!"

[Wilson Gray]

1940's, St. Louis's first black DJ, Spider Burke:

"Tell 'em Spider sent you."


Report of the Railway Accounting Officers - Volume 61 - Page
https://books.google.com/books?id=UkgaAQAAIAAJ
Association of American Railroads. Accounting Division - 1947 - Snippet view
The [illegible] was in such a place they could take their ease in
comfortable lounging chairs and see and hear the results of races all over
the country--Santa Anita, the Fair Grounds, Aqueduct Park and Jamaica. If
they chose, they might even place a small wager. "Just knock at the door
and _tell them Joe sent you_." [quotes original]


Advertising & Selling - Volume 29, Issues 28-52 - Page 18
https://books.google.com/books?id=kRwYAQAAMAAJ
1920 - ‎Read
The Seven Buyers a Salesman Meets
By Ralph Barstow - Pages 17-21 et seq.
"Have you been with this firm of yours long? Do they give you good pay?"
"Yes."
"Well, a good man like you should be out selling such and such a line. Do
you know So and So over there? They are fine people. They will treat you
right. Go ahead and see them. Here is my card. _Tell them I sent you_.
Well, good-bye, old man."

And out you go. Where is your order? You have been sidetracked.


BTW, Cedric is from The Lou.

On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 7:14 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> A current commercial ends with Cedric the Entertainer (formerly an
> Anglo-Saxon king in the Trump tradition) jesting, "Tell 'em Cedric sent
> you."
>
> The template is rarely uttered seriously, thus making it a catch phrase.
> I recall from some long, long forgotten B movie that it was stereotypically
> connected with a new customer being steered to a speakeasy, where they'd
> have to say, "X sent me" to gain admittance.
>
> The pattern is hard to search for, but here is an early ex. It's the
> caption of a cartoon in which a department-store customer is inquiring at
> the information desk, so the line must already have been a cliche'.
>
> 1950 _Dallas Morning News_ (Jan. 2) 2: Fourth floor - and tell them Joe
> sent you."
>
> JL
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
-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

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org