The alt.usage.english FAQ   

• "Elementary, my dear Watson!"

  (Phrase Origins)
  
  

  
  does not occur as such in any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock
  Holmes stories, although Holmes does exclaim "Elementary" in "The
  Crooked Man", and says "It was very superficial, my dear Watson, I
  assure you" in "The Cardboard Box".  The first recorded
  juxtaposition is in the 1929 film _The Return of Sherlock Holmes_
  (the first Holmes film with sound).
  
     The original stories never mention an Inverness cape, a
  deerstalker hat, or a meerschaum pipe, either.  Those props are due
  to illustrators and to actors.
  
     The WWW Sherlockian home page is at: http://www.sherlockian.net/.

  
  
  Source: [Mark Israel, 'Phrase Origins: "Elementary, my dear Watson!"', The alt.usage.english FAQ file,(line 4689), (29 Sept 1997)]
  
  
  
  

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