23 November 2021
A smart aleck or smart alec is a person who annoyingly expresses their knowledge or intelligence, a person who is too clever by half. While the meaning is well established and clear, the etymology is not. We just don’t know who the original Aleck or Alec was. All we know is that the phrase first appeared in the 1860s and most likely arose in the American West.
The first recorded use of smart aleck that I know of is in the Weekly Butte Record of Oroville, California on 16 May 1863:
“SMART ALECK” IN THE PULPIT.—A story is told of an old minister, who once announced to his hearers that on a following Sabbath he would tell his people what time to trim apple trees. The announcement had the desired effect, drawing out a large congregation. At the close of the service he announced that the time for his hearers to trim apple trees was when their tools were sharp.
There is also an appearance of the phrase in the New York Clipper of 2 January 1864. Of the early uses, this is the only one that does not come out of the American West. It appears in an article critical of the state legislature in Albany for banning the employment of female waiters in concert halls because their presence created an unwholesome atmosphere and how one enterprising man got around the proscription:
Soon after the bursting up of the “upper houses” from the loss of one of their principal attractions, the barmaids, he took it into his head to establish something new, whereby he could laugh in his sleeve at the “smart Alecs” of Albany town, and started a saloon with no other performance than a piano and violin, similar to the German “museke” shops, where female waiters had been tolerated without let or hindrance, so popular among our friends from Bingen-on-the-Rhine, or Rotterdam.
Back in the Western United States, the Nevada Gold Hills Daily of 9 January 1865 has this story about a smart aleck who tried to make fun of two Chinese immigrants and got his comeuppance:
Yesterday afternoon, as a crowd of idlers were standing on the corner of B and Union streets, Virginia, two Chinamen with uncommonly long tails passed by, when a smart chap “from Mud Springs” thought it would be a very fine joke to tie these two Johns together by the tails, and quietly advancing, succeeded in partly effecting his object, when a laugh from the crowd caused one of the twain (not Mark Twain) to turn his head, when he saw what the “smart Aleck” was about. John the larger at once turned right about face, rolled up his sleeves, exposing a pair of well-muscled arms, on which were figures of an anchor engraved in India ink, and at once led off with his left, which took effect on the smart chap’s nose. Smarty came back, but was met with a stinger under his ear, and in about two minutes John had soundly whaled the fellow, to the great delight of the bystanders.
The reference to Mark Twain made me question whether the 1865 date was correct, as Twain had not yet achieved widespread notoriety by this date, but the other dates in the paper confirmed it was correct. It turns out that he was something of a local celebrity at the time this newspaper piece appeared. Samuel Clemens had lived and worked in Nevada from 1861–63 and had first used his pen name while writing there.
Another early Nevada usage is in the Carson Appeal of 17 October 1865. Unfortunately, I do not have access to this issue of the paper, so I do not know the larger context for the usage. All I have is this snippet as it appears in various dictionaries:
Halloa, old smart Aleck—how is the complimentary vote for Ashley?
Turf, Field, and Farm of 17 February 1866 tells of a horse’s groom who was a smart aleck:
Belmont sustained an injury three years ago, from which he never recovered. Having received a slight contusion on the hock, a blundering groom, one of the “smart Aleck” order and a real learned ignoramus, put on a blister which took off hair and hide at once, and came near taking off the horse.
And the Salt Lake City Telegraph of 24 October 1866 uses the phrase to describe a city slicker:
“SMART ALECK.”—A young gentleman of the city, describing affairs in the country, writes that “the cows often act very badly about being milked; sometimes, when you are almost through they kick the milk all over, and you have to go to work and milk them right over again.”
Finally, there is this use from Nevada’s Carson Daily Appeal of 14 December 1867, an issue of that paper that has been digitized:
Because the plastering, overhead, in the Ormsby House bar-room fell off in a big patch on Thursday night, we don’t understand why the smart Alecs around town should grin and snicker and talk, in a knowing way, about two newly married couple [sic] having been among the guests at that excellent hotel on the night in question. It is most likely that the plastering was cracked by the heat—from the stove.
The fact that we have no idea of the identity of original smart Aleck has not deterred people from guessing. Some have suggested that the term derives from a character, Dr. Smart-Allick, created by British humorist J.B. Morton. But the term was well-established decades before Morton was even born—so Morton took his character’s name from the term, not vice versa.
Another guess was made by Gerald Cohen in a 1985 article in Studies in Slang. Cohen traces the origin to an 1840s New York City thief and confidence man named Aleck Hoag and hypothesizes that it was police who dubbed him “Smart Aleck,” because he was too clever by half. In the article, Cohen outlines Hoag’s criminal career in detail, but the article provides no evidence linking Hoag to the phrase, only conjecture. There is no more reason for thinking Hoag is the phrase’s inspiration than there is for anyone else of that name.
Sources:
American Heritage Dictionary, fifth edition, 2020, s.v. smart aleck, n.
“At the Wrong End.” Gold Hill Daily News (Nevada), 9 January 1865, 3. Newspapers.com.
“Broadway Below the Sidewalk: Pretty Waiter Girls and Underground Concert Halls.” New York Clipper, 2 January 1864, 300. Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections.
Cohen, Gerald Leonard. “Origin of Smart Aleck.” Studies in Slang, vol. 1. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1985, 85–105.
“Cosmo-Belmont.” Turf, Field, and Farm, 17 February 1866, 104. ProQuest Magazines.
Goranson, Stephen. “‘smart Alecs’ 1864 antedating.” ADS-L, 1 January 2020.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2021, s.v. smart aleck, n.
Merriam-Webster.com, 2021, s.v. smart aleck, n.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2013, modified December 2020, s.v. smart alec, n. and adj.
“Smart Aleck.” Salt Lake City Telegraph, 24 October 1866, 2. Gale Primary Sources: Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers.
“Smart Aleck in the Pulpit.” Weekly Butte Record (Oroville, California), 16 May 1863, 4. Library of Congress: Chronicling America, Historic American Newspapers.
“What of It?” Carson Daily Appeal (Carson City, Nevada), 14 December 1867, 3. Newspapers.com.
Image credit: Egos, 2020. imgflip.com.