Say thanks to the Yanks for our stiff upper lip

THE stiff upper lip is held up as a peculiarly British trait — but it was invented by the Americans.

In Alex Renton’s new book about boarding schools, Stiff Upper Lip, he investigates the U.S. origins of the expression.

The first use of the phrase came in 1815 — in America. And it became popular thanks to Keep A Stiff Upper Lip, a hit poem by Phoebe Cary (1824-71), a U.S. women’s rights advocate.

Renton says even prime ministers such as Pitt the Younger and the Duke of Wellington wept in public. Only after importing the concept of the stiff upper lip from U.S. did Britons acquire our cold, emotionally restrained reputation.