Never Said It: Sherlock Holmes Never Said Elementary, My Dear Watson
Sherlock Holmes never joins “Elementary, my dear Watson” in Doyle’s stories. The Crooked Man in 1893 and Psmith in January 1910 supply two receipts.
A familiar line with a missing connection.
Across Arthur Conan Doyle’s sixty original Holmes stories and novels, “Elementary, my dear Watson” never appears as a joined catchphrase. In The Crooked Man (1893), Holmes says “Elementary” on its own, once; “my dear Watson” appears earlier in that same exchange. The adjective occurs elsewhere in the stories. Wodehouse gives Psmith “Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary” in the January 1910 instalment of Psmith, Journalist, whose serial began in October 1909. The joined phrase was already in print before Wodehouse. Today the line is shorthand for an obvious deduction. In gaslit 221B, Holmes has a smaller mystery to solve: his missing biscuit.
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Never Said It
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