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A glossary of humor published in 1926 included “See you in the funny sheet,” and William Faulkner also used the phrase in his 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury (“Ta-ta see you in the funnypaper”), so it must have been widespread by that time. “See you in the funny papers” almost certainly dates back to the early 1920s because the term “funny papers/pages/sheet” itself apparently didn’t appear in print until roughly that time. Wilson also notes that such “See you” farewells have long been the occasion of humorous elaborations such as “See you in church” (between non-churchgoers) and, as a joking response to “See you later,” “Not if I see you first.” “See you” was a common casual farewell in the US at least by the late 1890s, although it may be somewhat older. A question about the phrase was raised back in 2002 on the mailing list of the American Dialect Society, and ADS member Douglas Wilson did a bit of research and deduction to come up with what seems like a reasonable explanation of the origin of the phrase, which I will do my best to summarize here.Īs Wilson notes, “see you” is a common component in colloquial farewells (e.g., “See you around,” “See you later,” or simply “See you”), used even between people who have no expectation of seeing each other again (as, for example, between a customer and a store clerk). “See you in the funny papers” is a jocular farewell that dates, as far as anyone has been able to determine, to the early years of the 20th century. Both this section and the daily comics pages were known as “the funny pages,” “the funny papers” or “the funny sheet.” A few grumpy, snooty newspapers (e.g., The New York Times) never published funny pages, and to this day they have to pay people to read their newspaper on the internet. On Sundays, many newspapers even had a whole special section devoted to just comic strips, often printed in color. But since most people found all that news pretty depressing, the newspapers also had a section, usually near the back, where they printed cartoons and comic strips to cheer folks up so they would buy the paper again the next day. Paper was like that, and “newspapers” were printed every day to tell folks what was going on in the world. Once upon a time there were things called “newspapers,” which were printed on stuff called “paper.” Imagine if you could somehow take just the image on the screen of your computer (iPad, whatever) and fold it up and carry it around and read it anytime you wanted, without needing any batteries or wi-fi. I’m guessing the speaker is saying you’re a joke, but where did it come from? - Andrea. I remember hearing it when I was younger, too. Dear Word Detective: What is the origin of the phrase “See you in the funny pages (papers)”? My girlfriend says her father used to tell her that whenever he left the house.