where did the saying that old chestnut come from
Chestnut (joke) A plausible explanation for the term given by the Oxford English Dictionary is that it originates from a play named "The Broken Sword" by William Dimond,[1] in which one character keeps repeating the same stories, one of them about a cork tree, and is interrupted each time by another character who says: Chestnut, you mean ... I have heard you tell the joke twenty-seven times and I am sure it was a chestnut. The play was first performed in 1816, but the term did not come into widespread usage until the 1880s.
William Edward Hickson The proverb can be traced back to the writings of Thomas H. Palmer in his Teacher's Manual, and The Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat.[3]