alt Hacker News> 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?
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> 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.
> 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.
Bike shedding.
cigarette packs have not been blank on the back since the commenter has been alive