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Nov 8, 2017 · Alec Hoag was a pimp who lived in New York City in the 1840s. On top of being a pimp, he was also a con man and a thief. He and his wife, Melinda, would work as a team to trick unsuspecting men out of whatever they had on them at the time. Their first scheme was a simple one.
Mar 11, 2022 · Ysbrand Cosijn/Shutterstock. How curious that the expression "smart alec," which The Urban Dictionary considers to be a family-friendly phrase, has its origins in a sinister tale of true crime and deception. This absolutely true story, dug up by a language historian in 1985 (per Mental Floss ), involves theft, bribery, and prostitution.
- Becky Pritchard
Alec Hoag was then given the nickname “Smart Alec” by the police for being too smart for his own good. The thought is that the police then used this term when dealing with other criminals who ...
- Who Was Gordon Bennett and Why Do We Use His Name Instead of swearing?
- Who Was Bob, and Why Is ‘Bob’s Your Uncle’ Such A Common Saying?
- A Smart Alec
- ‘Who Are You, The Queen of Sheba?’
- Murphy’s Law
- ‘They’ve Done A Lord Lucan’
- Bloody Norah!
If your name was used as an exclamation or swear word, you might not take it as a compliment. Well, that is Gordon Bennett’s legacy, but who was the man behind the expression? Many sources suggest that there could be a few contenders for the crown. The BBCexplains that there were two famous Gordon Bennetts who could be the source of the saying, a f...
Bob’s your uncle has become another way of saying ‘and there you have it’ or ‘and that’s that.’ Journalist Fraser McAlpine, in his BBC America Anglophenia blog, offers two different possibilities as to where this phrase comes from. The first explains that it could have been a satirical swipe at Conservative prime minister Lord Salisbury’s controver...
A professor at the Missouri University of Science and Technology discoveredthat being a smart Alec – a colloquialism for being too smart for your own good – was derived from a real-life person person. Alec Hoag was a pimp and a conman who lived in New York City in the 1840s. He and his wife, Melinda, would work as a team to trick unsuspecting men o...
When someone has a slightly inflated sense of themselves, we might be quick to ask them if they think they’re the Queen of Sheba. But why? Well, the Queen of Sheba is a figure first mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, and her story has evolved and adapted throughout Jewish, Islamic and Ethiopian scriptures. However, nearly all accounts involving the Que...
The idea behind Murphy’s Law is stating that anything that can go wrong, will go (or has gone) wrong. According to Brewer’s Dictionary of Irish Phrase & Fable, the expression was created by aerospace engineer Captain Edward A Murphy while he was working on a series of US Air Force studies to test human tolerance to acceleration and deceleration. He...
To do a Lord Lucan is to disappear without a trace. Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan was a British peer who disappeared after being suspected of murder. He disappeared in 1974 and was not seen again. He was declared officially dead in 2016.
Bloody Norah, like Gordon Bennett, can be said when you want to swear but you’re trying to show some restraint. A cry of anger or exasperation, who was the original Norah and why was she so bloody? One person, simply known as ‘Ronnie’ had a theory in the Guardian’s Notes and Queries section. The (unverified) story has it that the original bloody No...
- Jack Slater
Apr 19, 2024 · Alec Hoag’s name is still used today to describe someone who thinks they’re smarter than they really are - a ‘Smart Alec’. The fascinating story was shared by Cody Tucker with his 357,000 ...
Jun 27, 2022 · Katie Serena wrote about the work of professor Gerald Cohen of Missouri University of Science and Technology (along with that of other historians and researchers) and how in 1985 he was able to pinpoint where “smart aleck” came from. In the 1840s, a man named Alec Hoag lived in New York City, serving as the pimp for his wife Melinda.
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Nov 24, 2014 · When the cops found out about this in the early 1850s, Hoag was swiftly imprisoned. The Evolution of “Smart Alec”. Ten years after Hoag’s arrest, “smart alec” entered the American lexicon, initially as police slang for a criminal who was too smart for his own good, or whose cockiness led to his arrest. Its first known printed use, in ...
