Lady Astor: If you were my husband, I’d poison your tea.
PM Churchill: Madame, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.
This jest was published in November 1899. The excerpt below from an Oswego, New York newspaper acknowledged a source called the “Listener”. Neither participant was identified. Boldface has been added to excerpts:
The “Listener” reports the following from the subway: On one of the recent warm days a sour-visaged, fussy lady got on one of the smoking seats on an open car in the subway.
Next her sat a man who was smoking a cigar. More than that, the lady, sniffing, easily made out that the man had been eating onions. Still more than that, she had the strongest kind of suspicion that he had been drinking beer. The lady fussed and wriggled, and grew angrier, and looked at the man scornfully. Presently she could endure it no longer. She looked squarely at him and said:
“If you were my husband, sir, I’d give you a dose of poison!”
The man looked at her. “If I were your husband,” said he, “I’d take it!”
In 1942 New York columnist Louis Sobol credited Winston Churchill with an instance:
Someone once asked Churchill whether he had any rules for speechmaking, inasmuch as he was admittedly one of the greatest living orators. “A speech should be like a lady’s dress,” he replied, “long enough to cover the subject – but short enough to be interesting.”
In 1943 a syndicated gossip column reported that the popular singer Frances Langford heard the quip delivered by Winston Churchill:
Speaking of dresses, Frances Langford met Winston Churchill in London and congratulated him on his oratory. “A speech,” said he, “should be like a lady’s dress – colorful enough to catch the attention, long enough to cover the subject and short enough to be interesting.”
This jest evolved over time from partially matching statements. This quip is difficult to trace because it has many variants, and the phrasing is highly variable. The earliest strong match was in May 1920 in “The Buffalo Enquirer” of Buffalo, New York. The columnist Gerald K. Rudulph employed quotation marks to signal that the joke was already in circulation. This version used a simile comparing the length of a newspaper column and a woman’s skirt.