Does the exclamation 'holy smoke' derive from the burning of the ballots used to elect a Pope?
With the current hubbub surrounding the election of a new pope, I was wondering if the phrase “holy smoke” came from the smoke used in the burning of ballots during the conclave?
As crowds watched the plumes of white smoke that announced the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, some were moved to ask themselves if the signal wasn’t in fact the ‘holy smoke’ of popular terminology.Though the wispy beacon arising from the Sistine Chapel was both holy and smoke, this ancient mode of announcing a new pope isn’t the source of the idiom. Therecords the earliest print sighting of “holy smoke” as found in “The Epiphany,” a 1627 poem by Sir J.
In that 1627 work, the phrase is used as a picturesque way of describing the burning of incense. It is not until 1892, however, that it is recorded as finding employment as an exclamation or mild expletive; that is, as a saying wholly divorced of anything literally to do with something being burned or the smoke it would give off.
The two uses may have arisen independently and so be unrelated. The practice of setting fire to gifts meant for the gods is an ancient one — because deities are presumed to inhabit the heavens above and smoke rises, the connection was made that burning items designated as religious offerings would result in these oblations being transported to their intended recipients. Animals and foodstuffs were thus sacrificed in this fashion, and incense burnt for the same reason.
The divergence theory is supported by the number of other “holy” exclamations in existence, such as “holy Moses” and “holy cow.
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