# That's What She Said > That's What She Said" is a verbal catchphrase that reframes innocent statements as sexual double entendres, originating from Saturday Night Live (1975) and becoming Michael Scott's signature joke on The Office (2005). "That's What She Said" (TWSS) is a catchphrase used to reframe an innocent statement as a sexual double entendre. Rooted in the much older British expression "said the actress to the bishop," the joke was first popularized in America through *Saturday Night Live* in 1975 and *Wayne's World* in 1992, before reaching peak cultural saturation as Michael Scott's signature line on NBC's *The Office* starting in 2005[7]. It became the defining bad joke of the late 2000s, spreading across offices, schools, and the internet as a participatory formula anyone could deploy. ## Origin The American phrase traces back to at least 1975, when Chevy Chase used it during a "Weekend Update" segment on the first season of *Saturday Night Live*[8]. But the joke's DNA is much older. The British version, "said the actress to the bishop," dates to the Edwardian era of the early 1900s[6]. One popular (if unverified) origin story ties it to actress Lillie Langtry asking the Bishop of Worcester about his pricked finger, leading to an exchange so loaded that the butler supposedly dropped the potatoes[6]. The British phrase appeared in print as early as 1928, in Leslie Charteris's *Meet the Tiger*, and showed up in a sound test reel for Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 film *Blackmail* as "as the girl said to the soldier"[8]. Kingsley Amis used it in his 1954 novel *Lucky Jim*[6]. By 1973, the American version "that's what she said" had already been called an "ancient one-liner"[6]. Mike Myers brought the phrase to mainstream American audiences in the 1992 film *Wayne's World*, where Wayne uses it after his sidekick Garth says "Hey, are you through yet? 'Cause I'm getting tired of holding this" while holding a picture[12]. The joke had already been a recurring bit in the *Wayne's World* sketches on *Saturday Night Live*[9]. - **Platform:** Saturday Night Live (American usage), The Office (viral spread) - **Creator:** Chevy Chase (earliest documented American use), Mike Myers (film popularization), Steve Carell (cultural peak as Michael Scott) - **Date:** 1975 (American phrase), 1900s (British predecessor) ## Overview The joke works through a simple formula: wait for someone to say something that sounds accidentally sexual, then add "That's what she said" as a punchline. Phrases like "it's so hard," "I can't fit it all in," or "it just keeps getting longer" become innuendo the moment someone tags them with TWSS[5]. The humor comes not from cleverness but from the sheer ease of finding double meanings in everyday language. Almost any sentence involving size, difficulty, wetness, or duration becomes fair game[11]. The joke requires zero setup and minimal wit. That's the whole point. As *The Atlantic* put it, TWSS "seized your innocent words and contorted them into indecency" using a do-it-yourself approach to sex jokes that "required hardly any forethought and only a little cleverness"[7]. ## How It Spread The phrase simmered in American pop culture through the 1990s before exploding in the mid-2000s. The key accelerant was Steve Carell's Michael Scott on NBC's *The Office*, which premiered in March 2005. When the BBC original was adapted for American audiences, Ricky Gervais's character David Brent had used "as the actress said to the bishop" as his go-to inappropriate joke. The writers translated this to "that's what she said" for Scott, and it became the character's defining catchphrase[8]. The earliest Urban Dictionary entry for the phrase was created by user Bug on August 26th, 2003[4]. Xkcd published a comic titled "That's What SHE Said" on October 23rd, 2006, featuring the joke applied to a grammatically ambiguous sentence[3]. A second xkcd comic, "How It Happened," followed on June 13th, 2008, riffing on the phrase being used after an obviously sexual story[2]. The late 2000s saw a wave of dedicated TWSS infrastructure. A "That's What She Said" app launched on the iTunes store on March 16th, 2009, providing a button that played an audio recording of the phrase[4]. The single-topic blog TWSS Stories launched on April 6th, 2009, operating like an FML-style platform where users shared real-life TWSS encounters[4]. On January 31st, 2010, Funny or Die released a mockumentary about the phrase's origins starring Megan Mullally and Tom Lennon[4]. By 2012, the Facebook page "'That's What She Said' Jokes" had accumulated over 459,000 likes[4]. TV Tropes created a dedicated page on October 7th, 2011, cataloguing the phrase as a subtrope of the "Nudge" device for flagging double entendres[10]. The joke infiltrated nearly every corner of American pop culture, from *Family Guy* to *Batgirl* comics to Jeff Dunham's comedy specials[10]. ## How to Use The formula is dead simple: 1. Wait for someone to say something that sounds accidentally sexual when taken out of context 2. Immediately respond with "That's what she said" 3. Common trigger words: hard, long, big, wet, deep, tight, fit, comes, finish ## Cultural Impact TWSS crossed from internet joke to genuine linguistic event. *The Atlantic* published a full essay analyzing the joke's rise and fall in January 2014, placing it in a tradition of sexual wordplay stretching from Chaucer and Shakespeare through modern sitcoms[7]. The phrase was significant enough to earn dedicated pages on both TV Tropes and Know Your Meme[10][4]. The joke's relationship with *The Office* created a feedback loop: the show popularized TWSS, then real-world overuse of the joke became material for the show itself. NBC leveraged it for official promotions and sweepstakes[6]. The phrase also had workplace implications, as HR departments grappled with whether TWSS counted as sexual harassment when deployed in professional settings. The British original, "said the actress to the bishop," experienced a minor revival through its association with TWSS. Comic artist Brian Bolland produced *The Actress and the Bishop*, a comic directly inspired by the joke's long history[6]. ## Fun Facts - By 1973, "that's what she said" was already being called an "ancient one-liner," meaning the joke was considered stale more than 50 years ago[6]. - The earliest known recording of a TWSS-style joke is from a sound test reel for Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 film *Blackmail*, phrased as "as the girl said to the soldier"[8]. - The supposed origin of "said the actress to the bishop" involves Lillie Langtry asking the Bishop of Worcester "How is your prick?" about a thorn injury, causing a butler to drop the potatoes[6]. - *The Office* used the mockumentary format specifically so that bad jokes like TWSS could function as character comedy rather than just bad comedy[7]. - The phrase spawned at least one academic analysis of sexual double entendre tracing the structure back to 11th-century Anglo-Saxon riddles[7]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is "That's What She Said"? It's a catchphrase used to reframe an innocent statement as a sexual double entendre. Someone says something that could sound dirty out of context, and someone else responds with "that's what she said"[4]. ### Where did "That's What She Said" come from? The American version first appeared on *Saturday Night Live* in 1975, spoken by Chevy Chase. It descends from the much older British phrase "said the actress to the bishop," which dates to the Edwardian era[8]. ### What does "That's What She Said" mean? The joke implies that whatever was just said could also be something a woman would say during a sexual encounter. It turns innocent words like "it's so hard" or "I can't fit it in" into innuendo[5]. ### How do you use "That's What She Said"? Wait for someone to say something that sounds accidentally sexual, then immediately respond with the phrase. Common triggers include words like "hard," "long," "big," "wet," or "deep"[11]. ### Is "That's What She Said" still popular? The joke peaked in the late 2000s during *The Office*'s run and had largely faded from active use by the early 2010s, though it still surfaces as a nostalgia reference[7]. ### Who made "That's What She Said" famous? Steve Carell's character Michael Scott on NBC's *The Office* (2005-2011) is most associated with the phrase, though Mike Myers used it in *Wayne's World* (1992) and Chevy Chase used it on *SNL* in 1975[9]. ### What is the British version of "That's What She Said"? The British equivalent is "said the actress to the bishop" (or "as the actress said to the bishop"), which functions identically. Ricky Gervais used this version in the BBC's *The Office* before the American adaptation switched to TWSS[6]. ### How old is the "That's What She Said" joke? The underlying structure of sexual double entendre jokes dates back centuries, with the British "actress to the bishop" version originating in the early 1900s. The specific American phrasing dates to at least 1975[8]. ### Why did Michael Scott say "That's What She Said"? The writers of the American *Office* adapted David Brent's use of "as the actress said to the bishop" from the BBC version. The joke characterized Michael Scott as socially oblivious, someone who found the same bad joke endlessly hilarious[7]. ### Was "That's What She Said" in Wayne's World? Yes. In the 1992 film, Wayne responds with the phrase after Garth says "Hey, are you through yet? 'Cause I'm getting tired of holding this" while holding a picture[12]. ### Did xkcd make comics about "That's What She Said"? Yes, xkcd published two relevant comics: "That's What SHE Said" on October 23rd, 2006, and "How It Happened" on June 13th, 2008[3][2]. ## References 1. ["That's What She Said" Receipt Is Funnier Than Any Stupid April Fools]() 2. [xkcd: How it Happened]() 3. [xkcd: That's What SHE Said]() 4. [That's What She Said - Know Your Meme]() 5. [That's What She Said]() 6. [That's What She Said - Urban Dictionary]() 7. [Said the actress to the bishop]() 8. [That's What She Said: The Rise and Fall of the 2000s' Best Bad Joke - The Atlantic]() 9. [The Surprising Origin of "That's What She Said" - Thrillist]() 10. [The Origins Of The 'That's What She Said' Joke Go Way Back]() 11. [That's What She Said - TV Tropes]() 12. [Urban Dictionary: that's what she said]() 13. ["That's What She Said" Receipt Is Funnier Than Any Stupid April Fools]() 14. [Wayne's World (1992) - Quotes - IMDb]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/thats-what-she-said Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library