Citations:smart aleck

English citations of smart aleck

• 1989, Virginia Mae Axline, Play Therapy, page 278:

  Emma: I sure do. (She grinned impishly.) I'm a smart aleck, too. And a sassy, smarty-pants.¶ Therapist: Oh! You think you're a smart aleck, and you think you're sassy too.¶ Emma: I'm the meanest brat here at this dump.

• 2001, David Lynch, Mulholland Drive, spoken by Cowboy (Monty Montgomery):

  No, you're not thinking. You're too busy being a smart-aleck to be thinking. Now, I want you to think and stop being a smart-aleck. Can you try that for me?

• 2001, Upton Sinclair, Wide is the Gate II, page 704:

  A century or two ago some wit in Europe had paraphrased the verse, apropos of the success of the Empress Maria Theresa in enlarging her dominion by marrying off her sons and daughters. "Let others make war, you, happy Austria, marry." Lanny, the smart Aleck, only sixteen at the time, had thought it fun to write: "Let others make war, you, happy Budds, make money." His father hadn't appreciated the jest

• 2003, Paul Wellstone, How the Rural Poor Got Power: Narrative of a Grass-Roots Organizer, page 19:

  Being a smart aleck, I stayed two years in seventh grade.

• 2003, Shelby Anne Wolf, Interpreting Literature with Children, page 64:

  Bart subsequently decided that a smart aleck would have his own distinct mode of discourse. In the next rehearsal, he added a flippant tone to his character's voice and ended some lines with "baby" or "honey", explaining that since the fox was "sly" he ought to talk this way. His group agreed. His first attempt in practice sent them into high giggles. and they encouraged him to keep his sarcastic tone.

• 2005, Jim Aylesworth, Jennifer K. Rotole, Jim Aylesworth and You, page 80:

  This book is all about this smart aleck fox that goes all around pulling tricks on nice ladies. I am sorry to say, but every time he pulls a trick, Mr. Fox thinks it's funny.

• 2007, Giovanni R. F. Ferrari, The Cambridge Companion to Plato's Republic, page 100:

  To distinguish him from the "wise guy" Thrasymachus, I shall call him a "smart aleck."