Answers:
It's not ellic, it's Alec.
A conceited know-it-all, dates back to mid-19th century America. Regarding the identity of Alec Hoag, a notorious pimp and thief who operated in New York in the 1840s. He operated a trick called "The Panel Game" where he would sneak in via gaps in the walls and steal the valuables of his sleeping or unwary clients. The reputation he generated for not getting caught earned him the nickname Smart Alec.
its smart ALEC not ellic. I am guessing it goes back to some kid with this name who thought he could smart mouth off to his teachers as he thought he knew all the answers.
Gee, and I alway spelled the idiom: "smart aleck."
Smart aleck (or ellic, never saw that one), means a person is acting or talking in such an attention-seeking yet clever way that they are called a smart aleck, right before being told to stop acting like that.
A "smart aleck" or "smart alec" is a person regarded as obnoxiously self-assertive and an impudent person.
The first answerer is close - it goes back to a con man named Alec Hoag who ran a scam with accomplices in pickpocketing & paid off the cops so they wouldn't arrest him. He got caught when he tried to outfox the cops & get away without paying them. They then called him a Smart Alec, in a sarcastic way, because he thought he was outsmarting them, but he got caught - so how smart was he.
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