If you want to be satisfied , stick with this till the end . It wo n’t take long . ( That ’s what she enounce . ) The idiom " that ’s what she said " is n’t an ancient biblical epitaph . It has very definite ancestry , and they ’re are really fairly recent . The kinfolk at theToday I find Out YouTube channelhave attempted , in the video above , to decipher back through the history of your dad ’s favorite antic .
In America , the earliest documented caseful of the phrase appears in a 1975 episode ofSaturday Night Live . In finicky , it was Chevy Chase using the caper during " Weekend Update " on the show ’s first time of year . It was maintain in popular use onSaturday Night Livethrough repeateduses in " Wayne ’s World"sketches and , afterward , the movie .
However , the jape is a twist of a much older British phrase that tracks back more than a hundred to some point in the Edwardian period ( 1901 - 1910 ) . There , the line was " as the actress says to the bishop , " in reference to actress — whose fellowship could be purchased after performance — confessing their sins to clergymen . It was used the same way as " that ’s what she said , " highlighting an unintended double entendre .
That phrase has been used with some frequency in film and literature , include ina test Scottish reel for Alfred Hitchcock’sBlackmail , where it was turn into " as the girl said to the soldier . " That reading isconsidered to be the first recordingof a " that ’s what she say " gag .
" As the actress said to the bishop " has not been in regular usage for many years , though it pop up here and there in forward-looking history , like an visual aspect in the Kingsley Amis novelLucky Jim(1954 ) .
Importantly for the current popularity of " that ’s what she said , " Ricky Gervais start out using " as the actress said to the bishop " in the original British version of the sitcomThe Office . When the show was adapted for American audience , Steve Carell keep that phrase confiscate to the fibre , though used the American equivalent weight as one of Michael Scott ’s go - to jokes . So , while the jest ’s popularity is often tied toThe Office , it does n’t educe from the show .
Next time you pick out a double entendre in the wild and feel compelled to snaffle it and shake all you’re able to from it , remember its recollective history . treasure the fact you do n’t have to come up with something Modern and can just do the best with what you have .
Be left smiling and satisfy with an in - depth look at the origin of " as the actress say to the bishop " in the TV above .
