5 ms·
This reminds me of the classic phrase, “the butler did it”. It took me ages to realise that butlers aren’t naturally villainous, but rather were expected to tak
by taneq 6y ago
This reminds me of the classic phrase, “the butler did it”. It took me ages to realise that butlers aren’t naturally villainous, but rather were expected to take the fall for any malfeasance committed by the family.
- effingwewt 6y agoedit- after reading up on this, I'm not sure where you got your information from but everything I could find shows it to just be the common detective/mystery trope.
- fouc 6y agoIt just follows logically that historically some powerful families would have paid off a fall guy if necessary, and they could have used a butler in some cases. This could've been the origin of the term, before it even showed up in murder mysteries. Perhaps from the 1700s
- coldtea 6y ago>This could've been the origin of the term, before it even showed up in murder mysteries. Perhaps from the 1700s The thing is, it doesn't show up in murder mysteries themselves (except only as a fourth-wall breaking meta-reference to the trope). It originates with murder mystery readers -- as the name of a trope.
- rhizome 6y agoI bet a good butler is much harder to find than a patsy.
- eru 6y agoYes. Though you need a patsy who would have conceivably eg have access to the fancy cars.
- whatshisface 6y agoBut... Were they really?
- dyingkneepad 6y ago> It took me ages to realise that butlers aren’t naturally villainous, but rather were expected to take the fall for any malfeasance committed by the family. I just realized that in Oct 28th, 2020. Thanks for that.
- coldtea 6y agoThis might or might not be true, but it's not the origin of "the butler did it". The origin of the phrase is in the classical detective story trope.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> The origin of the phrase is in the classical detective story trope. Which, if I'm not mistaken, itself doesn't derive from household staff taking the fall for their employers, but from them being omnipresent but, by strong social custom, ignored.
- coldtea 6y agoYeah, I'm fairly sure that's the case. So while checking the motives of the high society suspects, nobody would suspect the lowly butler -- which, in another trope, had some dark past related to the family he was employeed at...
- runnr_az 6y agoWhoa.
- hoppla 6y agoIs this happening in movies under my nose?