Origin
According to an urban legend, Brown appeared on the BBC following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, and a BBC presenter subsequently described him as "tired and emotional". In reality, Brown appeared on ITV, and although he was criticised for his apparent intoxication, no evidence of the phrase being broadcast has been found.
It is also said to have its origin in a statement to the press by Brown's agent, Edward Eldred, who made excuses for him after he had behaved badly in public by saying that he was "tired and emotional". Others were less forgiving and one Foreign Office official said that "Mr. Brown was as tired and emotional as a newt." ("Pissed as a newt" is a British slang term for very drunk.)
The phrase became associated with Brown, who already had a reputation for alcohol abuse. The Sunday Times wrote that "George Brown drunk is a better man than Harold Wilson sober", but The Independent said "Brown became a bit of a figure of fun, and, thanks to Private Eye's favourite euphemism for his regular condition, he bequeathed the English language the expression "tired and emotional".
The 1993 biography by journalist Peter Paterson, which among other things described "his fondness for the bottle", was titled Tired and Emotional: The Life of Lord George Brown.
Read more about this topic: Tired And Emotional
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“Our theism is the purification of the human mind. Man can paint, or make, or think nothing but man. He believes that the great material elements had their origin from his thought.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)
“High treason, when it is resistance to tyranny here below, has its origin in, and is first committed by, the power that makes and forever re-creates man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)