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Pie hole

Posted by ESC on December 27, 1999

In Reply to: Pie hole posted by Bob on December 26, 1999

: Can anyone provide any insight into how the phrase, "shut your pie hole" come about? I know it essentially means "shut your mouth" but was looking for an origin, if one exists.

I've heard the expressions "shut your pie hole" and "shut your cake-hole" in movies and what not. But not in real life. I assumed they are American expressions. If memory serves, the union organizer/New York character said "shut your cake-hole" to the title character in the movie "Norma Ray." (Rae?)I couldn't find either expression in my southern sayings books. But I did find this in "The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang" by Tony Thorne (1990, originally published by Bloomsbury Publishing). "cakehold, n. British. Mouth. A slang term which was extremely widespread (and considered by many to be vulgar) in the 1950s and 1960s. It survives in the argot of schoolchildren."

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