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

[Jonathan Lighter]

1947 is great, Wilson, not least because it sort of bears out my own
perception.

The catch-phrase seems (for now) to have taken hold between '47 and late
'49, earlier exx. being seriously intended.

JL

On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 12:51 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>



-- 
"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