It Must Have Been A Lie

Hello, you have A Way with Words. Yes, hi, this is Rachel Kuchakis, and I’m calling in from Lexington, Kentucky.

Hey, Rachel, they’re in the bluegrass. Welcome. Yes, go cats. Go cats. Go big blue.

What can we do for you? Well, I had a question regarding something my dad would always tell me and my family, my siblings, my mom. Every time we would be like, Dad, I wanted to tell you something. Oh, I forgot, and he’d say, well, it must have been a lie.

And all through his 85 years, we’d ask him, Dad, what’s that mean? Oh, it’s a joke, and we never understood what it meant.

But he’d always say it to me, he’d say it to my mom, he’d say it to my sister. Apparently my brother-in-law, his dad said it too, and we don’t know if it maybe was a generational thing, or they were both military, maybe they picked it up there.

But for the life of me, we never understood the joke, and I was hoping that you could explain it to us.

I can find it is back as far as the 1920s in newspapers.

And even in 1930s, Charlotte Henry, a young film star who played Alice in Wonderland, was very well known for that, used it in an article about her search, a pursuit for bows for men.

But I think the joke part of it actually goes back to a little anecdote that you can find sometimes repeated in older periodicals.

And it goes something like this. One fellow says to another fellow, what’s the matter, old top? You seem to be worried.

Trouble with the wife. He said, yeah, this is the latest I ever was out. I called her up an hour ago and told her where I was.

And, well, you’re all right then. No, I’m not all right. I’ve forgotten where I was.

So he forgot what he told her where he said he was. Oh, right.

So that’s the lie. So that’s why it must have been a lie.

You forgot a thing because it wasn’t true. And it’s easier to forget a thing that isn’t true.

Well, see, and my dad never was able to explain why it was funny. He thought it was funny.

That makes sense. Yeah, yeah.

Well, lots of personal humor works that way where we think something is hilarious and nobody else does.

Oh, yeah. He thought it was hilarious. My mom would just roll her eyes at him every time he said it.

Yeah. Well, eye rolling is better than other responses. It must have been a lot.

Well, thank you very much for helping us understand what that meant and where that came from.

Yeah, sure. Thanks for calling, Rachel.

All right. Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye.

We know there’s a word or phrase that your parent used that you’re still puzzling over.

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