Talk:paint the town red

"To begin with, 'I'll paint the town red", by Grant E. Hamilton (1885)

Does this picture display a different sense of the proverb? Click image for its background. --LA2 (talk) 08:35, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this. My intuition is that it's a pun, but to have the pun be understood already in 1885 if the expression was only coined in 1884 (and unrelated to politics) would be unusual. Perhaps there were earlier uses of the expression (see below) in media that have been lost in the meantime. —Soap— 05:25, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

please explain

we currently say A British claim attributing it to the actions of the Third Marquess of Waterford predates the first known use by decades. What does this mean? thanks, —Soap— 05:23, 17 September 2023 (UTC)