“Charmed, I’m Sure” as a Sugar-Coated Snarky Greeting

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yes, hi. This is Mike Salpeter from Atlanta.

Welcome to the show, Mike. How can we help?

Hi, Mike.

Thank you for taking my call.

When I was a child, I was a huge fan of I Love Lucy, and there are a few really cute expressions that have stood out in my mind all these years, one of which I wanted to call and ask you about.

It’s the expression charmed, I’m sure, which is basically as it sounds. When you’re meeting somebody, you shake their hand and you say, “Charmed, I’m sure.”

In the particular context of the episode, I don’t remember it in great detail, but I remember that Lucy and Ethel were meeting somebody that Ethel was very dubious about.

She had a very suspicious expression on her face, and she puts out her hand and says, “Charmed, I’m sure.”

So clearly she wasn’t charmed, but I was just wondering your impression of that expression, where it comes from, and whether it’s ever still used anymore.

I have the sense that charmed, I’m sure used to be a lovely expression, sort of like French enchanté, you know, and charm had a different sense back in those days.

And before that, I mean, my mother went to charm school. Can you believe that?

She was going to send me to charm school when I was old enough, but then I think charm schools disbanded or something.

But I think charm had a different sense back in the earlier part of the century.

This sounds like one of those things that we’ve talked about before on the show, Grant: the sugar-coated snark, like bless your heart, where you say exactly the opposite of what you mean.

Follow it up with something snarky, you know.

Exactly. “Bless her heart.” You know, something, right?

Yeah, but I haven’t heard anybody use that.

No, it’d be affected now. It might appear in a period drama on PBS, but I don’t even think then.

The difficult part of charmed, I’m sure is why the I’m sure. It just seems awkward.

Even if you mean it genuinely, why do you have to say I’m sure?

Right, exactly. It’s sort of like, “I like your dress.” “No, really.”

I also find it really interesting that, if you look in the historical record, it goes back to the 1850s, by the way.

It starts out fairly genuine, like Martha said, but it grows ironic and even sarcastic pretty quickly.

And it comes up again and again in these circumstances where manners and custom require that you shake someone’s hand and say hello, even if you don’t like them.

Even if they’re incredibly disagreeable, you still have to say something.

And so that I’m sure—I don’t know—maybe that’s a way of saying exactly the opposite of what you’re thinking.

It seems like a real, I don’t know, peek into the future, because people say that this decade is—we’re kind of in an ironic age where we say things like that.

But something like the 1950s, it would seem like that wouldn’t be something that they would say. Even if they weren’t charmed, they would just say, “Charmed,” and leave it at that.

That’s why I’m kind of surprised by the I’m sure.

We modern folk don’t have any kind of claim on being the most snarky or sarcastic people.

By no means.

No, not at all.

Ethel Mertz was sort of a hipster, don’t you think?

Of our age.

Thanks for calling.

Thank you. I appreciate it. I really enjoy your show.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Charmed.

Bye-bye.

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