That’s All She Wrote

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kate. I’m in Wyoming.

Wyoming. Well, welcome to the show. How can we help?

My father used to say, he was an old cowboy born in the early 1900s, and he used to say when something was ended or finalized, that’s all she wrote.

That’s all she wrote?

Yep.

That’s all she wrote.

What did he mean by it?

Well, like, I found myself saying it yesterday, like, if you were finished with something, or I was feeding my dogs, I gave them some treats. I said, that’s all she wrote. I said, oh, I just said it.

There’s no more, right? When you finalize something or it’s at the end of something, that’s all she wrote.

I was an English teacher, and I can’t find the source of that anywhere.

It’s interesting that your father was an old cowboy. There was a famous song in 1942 by Ernest Tubb called That’s All She Wrote. And it was just a couple years prior to that that this term first appears on the scene.

And it’s typically couched in the language of a woman writing to her lover and saying, it’s finished. I’m done with you.

And in the tale telling, imagine a man in a barracks talking to his fellow soldiers, reading the letter from his love, and she says, Dear John. It’s literally a Dear John letter. Dear John.

Exactly. I was going to say, like a Dear John letter.

And you know what? I think I have heard that song.

There we go. I’m sorry I’ve met another.

But I didn’t. I didn’t connect the two at all.

Yeah, he’s reading, Dear John, I’m sorry I’ve met another. It’s finished between us.

And then he looks up to his friends and says, that’s all she wrote. And so he’s done.

That’s all she wrote. Okay.

Yeah.

It’s over.

And it’s hard to say how influential this song was, but it certainly was a big enough hit that it could have had an influence.

And by the time World War II was underway for Americans, it was fairly widespread and it was a common catchphrase.

Well, wonderful.

And when was the Ernest Tubbs song?

1942.

1942.

Okay.

I’ll remember that.

Well, thanks for calling, Kate.

Well, thank you for all your information. It’s wonderful.

And I’ll get online and look up old Ernest.

There we go. I think you can find the song on YouTube.

Take care now.

Take care.

Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.