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“Put that in your pipe and smoke it”

wordhistories.net

31–40 of 47 posts

Re: “Put that in your pipe and smoke it”

#31

My mom had a list of these. She used it as, "well ponder that, but it's not going to change.' She also said: "go sew buttons on your underwear" - what your doing is just about as useless "and, if horses were wishes, beggars would ride" - stop wishing and just do it

So, did you ever stop wishing and make the usefully-buttoned underwear of your dreams? :-)

Re: “Put that in your pipe and smoke it”

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'deal' itself seems to have a different meaning depending on the country In the USA it seems to mean 'cope' or put up with. In Australia / UK it means do something about it.

I'm not sure that's the regional split. I'm in the UK, and hear it being using in both senses: "You should deal with it / I'll deal with it" - do something to solve the problem "Yeah, deal with it!" - dismissively, put up with it I don't know if the latter came from the American usage, but I certainly hear it used.

The US also has these exact same two usages.

Re: “Put that in your pipe and smoke it”

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m from Ireland and always thought it meant “tough luck, deal with it”

'deal' itself seems to have a different meaning depending on the country In the USA it seems to mean 'cope' or put up with. In Australia / UK it means do something about it.

In Ireland and UK it also means cope depending on the context. "Can you deal with this please?" And "Tough shit! Deal with it!" for example.

Re: “Put that in your pipe and smoke it”

#34
post #5
post #2

> The colloquial phrase put that in your pipe and smoke it and its variants mean accept or put up with what has been said or done, even if it is unwelcome. Interesting. I always gave it a more sinister meaning along the lines of “eat that”. This is definitely more neutral.

Where I grew up in England it was the polite version of "well you can just shove it up your arse". Maybe the meaning has moved on because "smoke" as meaning consider has been lost, or perhaps it was a local variation. Just checked with my partner, they're from half the country away from where I'm from and they agree.

> Where I grew up in England it was the polite version of "well you can just shove it up your arse". Maybe the meaning has moved on

That's the meaning I'm familiar with in the US. Jonathan Coulton's song Not About You [also American] makes it quite explicit that those two phrases in particular are synonymous.

https://www.jonathancoulton.com/store/

Re: “Put that in your pipe and smoke it”

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m from Ireland and always thought it meant “tough luck, deal with it”

'deal' itself seems to have a different meaning depending on the country In the USA it seems to mean 'cope' or put up with. In Australia / UK it means do something about it.

> 'deal' itself seems to have a different meaning depending on the country

As other comments have pointed out, there is no difference in meaning by country. Both meanings exist, and which one is being used is determined by context.

Re: “Put that in your pipe and smoke it”

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'deal' itself seems to have a different meaning depending on the country In the USA it seems to mean 'cope' or put up with. In Australia / UK it means do something about it.

It's even weirder than that. With an unspecified subject "deal with it", it does mean "put up with" or abide. However, if your boss told you that "We haven't been paid yet; deal with it!", odds are good that you're expected to be on the phone or otherwise chasing down the tardy clients.

What's weird about it? This is true of essentially all words.

Re: “Put that in your pipe and smoke it”

#37

My mom had a list of these. She used it as, "well ponder that, but it's not going to change.' She also said: "go sew buttons on your underwear" - what your doing is just about as useless "and, if horses were wishes, beggars would ride" - stop wishing and just do it

> if horses were wishes, beggars would ride" - stop wishing and just do it

I know the saying, but I just see it as expressing "wishing won't make something happen". No implication that you should, or even could, actually do anything to realize your wish.

Re: “Put that in your pipe and smoke it”

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m from Ireland and always thought it meant “tough luck, deal with it”

'deal' itself seems to have a different meaning depending on the country In the USA it seems to mean 'cope' or put up with. In Australia / UK it means do something about it.

In the US, it can take either meaning depending on context/inflection/delivery.

Re: “Put that in your pipe and smoke it”

#39

My mom had a list of these. She used it as, "well ponder that, but it's not going to change.' She also said: "go sew buttons on your underwear" - what your doing is just about as useless "and, if horses were wishes, beggars would ride" - stop wishing and just do it

My 7th grade math teacher once said “you can factor prime numbers until the angel Gabriel blows his horn at the end of time but it ain’t gonna do you no good!”

She also referred to improper fractions as “big top” or Dolly Parton “because she’s big up top, you know what I mean?”

Yes Mrs. Covington, we did :-)

Re: “Put that in your pipe and smoke it”

#40

This will always bring up http://sinatrarb.com/ in my mind, now.

That's also where I first encountered the expression. IIRC it used a clever pun of using the pipe shell operator | to install Sinatra (put that in your pipe) and a simple hello world code sample (and smoke it).
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