[PW] Origin of "Talking through his hat"?

[Dennis Lien]

At 06:50 PM 9/27/2007, you wrote:

>I'm looking for the likely origin of the phrase "talking through his hat",
>alternately "talking into his hat."  I've checked online resources and
>database collections, including Oxford references.
>
>Google Books does not show an entry earlier than the 1880s, though
>accounts of Joseph Smith recount that he talked into his hat to translate
>the Book of Mormon, which would have been before 1880.  Are there earlier
>references?


I don't know about origin, but the phrase appears to have become
popular in 1891/2, judging from searches in the full text NEW YORK
TIMES and CHICAGO TRIBUNE:

earliest instances found:

talking through his hat / 15 November 1892 in NT; 1 June 1891 in CT
talks . . . through his hat / 21 October 1892; 4 June 1891 in CT

The 4 June 1891 CHICAGO TRIBUNE entry (page 4) is especially
interesting: it's a short anonymous poem:

"The man who jabbers in a way,
Particularly flat
'Tis now the proper slang to say
Is talking through his hat.

The boaster of the blooming jay
Whose self-conceited chat
Is sure to give him dead away
Is talking through his hat.

And he who says for President
Three hundred pounds of fat
Will win next year's big race event
Talks likewise through his hat.

In the TRIBUNE there are eight appearances in 1891 alone, four of them
in June; there are eighteen in the TRIBUNE before the first in the TIMES.


Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // d-lien at umn.edu