“Put that in your pipe and smoke it” | Hacker News Reader

“Put that in your pipe and smoke it”

wordhistories.net

106 pointsdoat46 comments

> 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.

To me, "put that in your pipe and smoke it" has a sense of rubbing in that the listener was incorrect, so it has the same connotation as "eat crow" or "how do you like them apples?".

Yes, in my mind it has exactly the same meaning as “how do you like them apples?”

When I was a teenager my cousin hit me with a new one that I kind of like: “put that in your juice box and suck on it”

"ponder (and put up with!) what has been said or done, even if it is unwelcome" would be a more correct definition. It's basically equivalent to the Americanism "chew on that". It can be pretty neutral or quite hostile, depending on how unhappy you think the listener is going to be with the news.

I'm not sure why this caught HN's interest to be honest, but it's no harm. If you want more, you can read P.W. Joyce: https://archive.org/details/englishaswespeak00joycuoft/

Pretty much. Where I grew up it was more or less equivalent to "ain't that a bitch!"

The boss cut our hours and gave them to his cousin! (Now put that in your pipe and smoke it)

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.

Over in Midwest USA, it always meant, usually (but not always) adversarially, “so you can ponder THAT all night, and no matter how much you think about it, will change neither the facts nor the conclusion.”

The only local color I have to add is that it was also somewhat normal to hear “put that in your peace pipe and smoke it” and also “so you can shove that in your peace pipe, and smoke it,” both being references to the custom among some Native North American nations to share a “peace pipe” as a kind of diplomatic gesture, but turned on its head.

This had the effect of me always believing and perceiving it as (usually) especially sarcastic, but largely deriving from the exact meaning that it originates from, even if the cultural reasons were obfuscated.

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.

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.

Could you share some other examples?

The only thing that came to mind is "bite/eat it" (i.e., fall), and there "it" is presumably the dirt/snow/pavement/etc that the person fell onto. The "it" in "hit it" and "cool it" seems to refer to the on-going action/attitude too, even if it's not precisely specified.

What are you thinking of? Your original comment just illustrates that "deal" has multiple senses. This followup suggests you think there's something special about the "it", which I agree with in the case of "bite it", but not in the case of "deal with it".

If you're curious about dummy objects, there is a short list of examples on wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dummy_pronoun#Dummy_objects ), such as make it [achieve success].

Deal is the only verb I can think of where an expletive object flips the meaning 180 degrees vs. a concrete one.

Taking more examples from your link:

- "I don't get it" == "I don't understand [something]", in the same way that "I don't get math" == "I don't understand math."

- "He made it" == "He succeeded [generally]", but you can drop in several concrete goals: "He made the team/grade/partner" == "He was successful at ..."

- "Deal with the problem" == "Take some action to solve the problem", but "Deal with it" == "Abide the current situation because it will not change".

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.

> '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.

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.

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

"I told you to take care of him, not to take care of him!"

> 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/

(From the South West) I agree it can be like that, but I also think the quoted bit is fair - to me it doesn't have to be adversarial 'ha, take that!' it can be more 'eesh, I'm on your side but ugh, what a blow'.

Scotland checking in!

I've always understood it the same way. Checked with my partner from half this country away, and she agrees too.

Yep same in Australia

I've understood it similarly, as a statement made after introducing a piece of evidence or an arguable assertion. The meaning of the phrase itself being a demand that the listener reconsider their position in light of the newly introduced facts.

I always read it as a poking-fun variant of "booyah!"

Which is of Hebrew origin and shares roots with the African "Boomshakalaka!"

Can you elaborate? I couldn't find anything toegang, but googling this without more information is hard. For starters, what does "African" refer to?

I think he or she is joking.

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 :-)

> 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.

Since this is bothering me when I view my comments, I'll note that the saying actually goes "if wishes were horses...".

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

ha! No, but I do remember thinking as a child, "That would be super uncomfortable and maybe even hurt!"

This will never not remind me of Spaceghost Coast to Coast when he interviews Sportscaster Bob Costas. "Put that in your pipe and smoke it! With your burned lips!"

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).

Its good to see that letters to the editor haven’t changed much in over 200 years.

And these days we describe people as being "based" i.e. "freebased" i.e. "engaging in action or thought without regard to the opinion of others (because you're high on rock cocaine)"

In the past decade the term "based" has been reclaimed by Lil B, and has lost the derogatory connotation.

From my experience "based" represents a level-headed, wise individual who can think outside the box.

More recently, the meaning of "based" seems to have shifted to something closer to "completely unapologetic about one's beliefs, even if it seems unpopular." It's usually brought up when someone poses a strawman but it ends up being completely accurate.

It was lil B who turned that word into a positive term.

Lil B for Lil Boss / Big talk, get your head cracked http://www.lyrics.gy

Based

And let's not forget one of Stephen Sondheim's best lines, from West Side Story:

"I like the island Manhattan.

Smoke on your pipe and put that in!"

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