<P> The term, or its variant "as the actress said to the bishop", may have been used as far back as Edwardian times, and is apparently British in origin . </P> <P> The phrase is frequently used by the fictional character Simon Templar (alias "The Saint") in a long - running series of mystery books by Leslie Charteris . The phrase first appears in the inaugural Saint novel Meet the Tiger, published in 1928 . </P> <P> The version "as the girl said to the soldier" appears in a recorded sound test for Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 film Blackmail . </P> <P> Kingsley Amis uses the line in his 1954 novel Lucky Jim, where a woman offering relationship advice to Jim Dixon says "I can't show you, as the actress said to the bishop ." </P>

Keep the biting to a minimum said the actress to the bishop