after you, Alphonse
English edit
Etymology edit
Paraphrase of a quote from Alphonse and Gaston, an American comic strip by Frederick Burr Opper.
Phrase edit
- An exchange indicating excessive formality or effort at politeness, particularly where two people each refuse to go forward because each insists on allowing the other to go forward first.
- 1964 February 14, “Snow show goes off in big style”, in LIFE, volume 56, number 7, page 30:
- And two French sisters performed a delightful after-you-Alphonse routine when they came in first and second in the women's slalom, then took the same top places, in reversed order, in the giant slalom.
- 2010, Wendy Steiner, The Real Real Thing: The Model in the Mirror of Art, page 109:
- As this tortuous wording suggests, models and their reflections keep reversing in the mirror, in a sort of “after you, Alphonse—no, after you” exchange.