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

[Bye, Dan J]

Brewers Phrase and Fable speculates that the phrase originates in Victorian times, when "urchin" message boys, lacking pockets, would keep messages under their hats.    I'm not convinced.

Dan
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org 
> [mailto:project-wombat-bounces at lists.project-wombat.org] On 
> Behalf Of Dennis Lien
> Sent: 01 October 2007 19:18
> To: list at project-wombat.org
> Subject: Re: [PW] Origin of "Talking through his hat"?
> 
> 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
> 
> 
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