Where does this phrase originate from?

Question

"Not that old Chest nut again!" is commonly used in English to indicate that the excuse you've just heard is a recurring one. I'd like to know where it comes from. Anyone out there know?

Answer 1

Here's something I found using Google (Yahoo gave me nothing useful at all!):

"It comes from a play called "Broken Sword" by W Dimond, published in 1816. One character starts to tell a story and mentions a cork tree; another interrupts saying ""This is the twenty-seventh time I have heard you relate this story, and you invariably said, a chestnut, till now!" Thus "a chestnut" is a much-repeated story. The phrase is first recorded in this sense in 1880."

The second site I tried gave the same reference, and then added:

"This sounds reasonable enough as the source, but there are some loose ends. This sense of chestnut, for a joke or story that has become stale and wearisome through constant repetition, isn’t recorded until 1880. Where had it been all that time, if the source was the play? The word in this sense was claimed by British writers in the 1880s to have originally been American, though it became well known in Britain and according to the OED many stories about its supposed origin circulated in 1886-7. But the play was certainly originally British (Dimond was born in Bath and at the time was managing theatres in Bath and Bristol).

The latter point is easily cleared up, because the play became as popular in the USA for a while as it had been in Britain. The same newspaper report claims that the intermediary was a Boston comedian named William Warren, who had often played the part of Pablo:

He was at a ‘stag’ dinner when one of the gentlemen present told a story of doubtful age and originality. ‘A chestnut,’ murmured Mr. Warren, quoting from the play. ‘I have heard you tell the tale these 27 times.’ The application of the line pleased the rest of the table, and when the party broke up each helped to spread the story and Mr. Warren’s commentary.” You may take this with as large a pinch of salt as you wish, though a similar story, attributing it to the same person, is given in the current edition of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Even if it wasn’t William Warren, it’s not hard to see how somebody else familiar with the play could have made the same quip.

As the joke could have been made at any time the play was still known, and as it probably circulated orally for a long time before it was first written down, the long gap between the play’s first performance and its first recorded use isn’t surprising.

The old in old chestnut is merely an elaboration for emphasis—another form is hoary old chestnut—both of which seem to have come along a good deal later."

And finally, the good old BBC:

"Showbusiness and sport have played their part, giving us everyday phrases such as stealing someone's thunder, and old chestnut, which was first used in a play in 1816."

Thanks for asking this question - I'd used the phrase several times myself and never thought about where it came from. It has been fun finding out!

Answer 2

That's an old chestnut means, usually, that a joke is old and well known. The origin here goes back to a near forgotten melodrama by William Diamond. The play, first produced in 1816, has one of the characters forever repeating the same joke, albeit with minor changes. The joke concerns a cork tree. On one occasion another character, Pablo, fed up with the same joke says; "A Chestnut. I have heard you tell the joke 27 times and I'm sure it was a Chestnut!" The quotation was used in real life by the American actor William Warren who, at the time, was playing the part of Pablo. He was at a dinner party when one of the guests started off on a well worn joke. Warren interrupted with the quotation, much to the amusement of the other guests. As a result the expression entered into the wider language.

Hope that answers your question if you would like to know where any other sayings come from just let me know x

Answer 3

Eric Partirdge in Origins (1983 edition) says the probable origin is eating roasted chestnuts at the fireside while listening to old stories. The word chestnut itself, he says, derives from Middle English chesten nut, and ultimately from Latin castaneo, a translation of the Greek kastanea, meaning "chestnut." That helps, of course, a lot.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable traces the origin to The Broken Sword, a forgotten melodrama by William Dimond (1816) in which one of the characters, Captain Xavier, is forever telling the same jokes, over and over, with slight variations. As he repeats a certain joke involving a tree, this time making it about a cork tree, Xavier is corrected by Pablo, who says, "A chestnut. I have heard you tell the joke twenty-seven times, and I am sure it was a chestnut."

Answer 4

That expression actually does come from an old joke. Here is the quote from etymonline, which is an etymological dictionary, giving the roots and origins of words:

"Slang sense of "venerable joke or story" is from 1886, probably from a joke (first recorded 1888) based on an oft-repeated story in which a chestnut tree figures. The key part of the 1888 citation is:
"When suddenly from the thick boughs of a cork-tree --"
"A chestnut, Captain; a chestnut."
"Bah! booby, I say a cork-tree!"
"A chestnut," reiterates Pablo. "I should know as well as you, having heard you tell the tale these twenty-seven times."


So when someone tells a joke that is very common and everyone knows it, then we respond with "that old chestnut", a joke that both the one hearing it and the one telling it and everyone else has heard at least 50 times, and the one hearing it can finish it better than the one telling it.

Answer 5

it comes from William Dimond's play, The Broken Sword (1816), in which one character keeps repeating the same stories, one of them about a cork tree, and is interrupted each time by another character who says "Chestnut, you mean . . . I have heard you tell the joke twenty-seven times and I am sure it was a chestnut."

Answer 6

I believe it was used by zideene zidanne in the would cup final of 2006.

Answer 7

http://www.londonslang.com/db/c/

19th century London theatre
Originally used for an old joke.