“as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted …”
A phrase made in jest,used when resuming an activity after an enforced
break. In September 1946, Cassandra (William O’Connor) resumed his column
in the Daily Mirror after it had been suspended for the duration of the
Second World War, with:* ‘As I was saying when I was interrupted, it is
a powerful hard thing to please all the people all the time.’* In June
of that same year, announcer Leslie Mitchell is reported to have begun
BBC TV’s resumed transmissions with: ‘As I was saying before I was so
rudely interrupted.’ The phrase sounds as if it might have originated
in music-hall routines of the I DON’T WISH TO KNOW THAT, KINDLY LEAVETHE STAGE type.
Compare A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926): ’”AS – I –
WAS – SAYING,” said Eeyore loudly and sternly, “as I was saying when I
was interrupted by various Loud Sounds, I feel that – ”.’ Fary Luis de
Le�n, the Spanish poet and religious writer, is believed to have
resumed a lecture at Salamanca University in 1577 with, ‘Dicebamus hesterno
die … [We were saying yesterday].’ He had been in prison for five
years. [courtesy of Collins’ Dictionaries]