Comment by eszed
2 days ago
> Who was ever writing on the back of cigarette packs?
British officers planning trench raids in the front lines during WWI. Or, at least, that's where I've been told the expression originates.
Really, though, is it impossible to imagine no one, ever, using a cigarette pack to jot something down? It's a colloquialism. It doesn't even have to be taken literally to make sense. What is gained by questioning it on that level?
> is it impossible to imagine no one, ever, using a cigarette pack to jot something down?
Wouldn't the back have printing on it? I could imagine someone ripping the pack open and writing on the insides, which are blank.
In quite a few countries they were rather blank, not like today!
I don't know what cigarette packaging looked like at the time, but can imagine they were possibly government provided in a very simple paper package.
Ding ding ding! Here is a photo of a cigarette packet included in a Christmas box sent to every BEF (British Expeditionary Force) soldier in France in 1914. You can see that the back offers quite a lot of room for writing:
https://britishmilitarybadges.co.uk/products/princess-mary-1...
That Christmas box itself, by the way, is beautiful. Brass, with an embossed portrait of Princess Mary, and scrollwork on the cover. My former father-in-law had one, that had been brought back by his father from France - missing, ironically enough in the context of this conversation, only the cigarettes, which he didn't smoke, but used in trade.
cigarette packs have not been blank on the back since the commenter has been alive
> Really, though, is it impossible to imagine no one, ever, using a cigarette pack to jot something down? It's a colloquialism. It doesn't even have to be taken literally to make sense. What is gained by questioning it on that level?
I took the OP's question to really be a question about the origin of that phrase, and with your answer, I learned something I didn't know before. So I, for one, am happy the question was asked.
I'm glad it was asked too and enjoyed the answer.
The OP's question was clearly skeptical though:
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napkins, and envelopes at least kind of make sense.
Who was ever writing on the back of cigarette packs?
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Implication being that writing on the back of cig packs does not make sense. I'd agree with your reading if not for the "at least kind of make sense" bit.
My father taught me times tables, each one written on the back of a fag packet, in 1972. And we used matches for addition and multiplication before that.
Bike shedding.