Who shot John

February 4th, 2012 by admin

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8 comments on this post.

  1. Jenn:

    July 17th, 2015 at 12:47 am

    Very nice column/post. Best explanation read yet.

  2. J. Southmountain:

    March 10th, 2016 at 1:39 am

    I curse myself for not buying a certain old book I saw at a library sale twenty-five years ago which dealt with this question summarily– it was from the ’40’s, I think, of a genre somewhere along the axis of humorous/quirky belles lettres by hard-baked ex-journalists à la H. Allen Smith, and it was either actually titled “Who Struck John” or had as its main chapter a piece so-titled. The introduction to the collection gave the whole backstory, chapter and verse, on the origins of the phrase (or its adaption) in American culture, involving some convoluted joke involving bars and whores and god knows what else, of which it is the killer punch-line, and which joke maddeningly I can’t now for the life of me remember, lo! these many moons later. But there IS an answer to be found, somewhere, by some brave questing bibliophile, in the dusty pages of this elusive tome of yesteryear. Cheers.

  3. Joanne K:

    May 10th, 2020 at 8:30 pm

    My mother used it often in the early fifties in upstate NY. My parents had lived several years in Baltimore MD (1943-1948 at least) and from 1941-42 in Richmond Va. She used it in the form: “That’s a lot of who struck John”…meaning messy lies, or in today’s vernacular, BS. I always assumed it was a southern expression, a parental way of not saying BS around the children.

  4. Carol Johnson:

    February 2nd, 2021 at 12:05 am

    Judge Judy uses the expression “That’s a lot of ‘Who Shot John!’ ” to mean, essentially, a lot of pointless blather that has only the purpose of obfuscating the issue at hand. It’s the only time I’ve ever heard the expression used out loud – and she uses it quite often on her show!

  5. Sue:

    December 1st, 2021 at 1:40 pm

    Thank you for this explanation! My daughter accuses me of using phrases she’s never heard of almost every time we are together. “Who shot John” is one I’d never heard before until today’s episode of Judge Judy…and I’m almost as old as her! Lol! :)

  6. Sue:

    December 1st, 2021 at 1:41 pm

    Thank you for this explanation! My daughter accuses me of using phrases she’s never heard of almost every time we are together. “Who shot John” is one I’d never heard until today’s episode of Judge Judy…and I’m almost as old as her! Lol! :)

  7. adrienne:

    March 17th, 2022 at 10:06 pm

    I’m over the hill, but my mom used the phrase “who shot john” when regency to chaos or a ruckus she wanted brought to a swift halt…or else. She was a coal miner’s daughter from Kentucky

  8. adrienne:

    March 17th, 2022 at 10:09 pm

    *referring not “regency”, lol. i dislike autocorrect more and more each passing day. sigh

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