Words or phrases you love (quote)

[SeaOfGrass]

Originally Posted by Deelighted

caterwaul

Originally Posted by LilyMae521

funny, but just the word caterwaul hurts my ears.

Whenever a certain kind of singing comes on the radio, "Turn off that caterwauling!"

Originally Posted by LilyMae521

Then again-
mon petite chou.

literally, my little cabbage, but used as an endearment. I like when my current trophy husband (of 40 years.. ;-)) calls me his little cabbage.

mon petite chou just rolls softly out of the mouth.

Sweet.

[Deelighted]

Originally Posted by SeaOfGrass

Whenever a certain kind of singing comes on the radio, "Turn off that caterwauling!"

Oh boy I remember hearing that phrase a lot as a teen!


Just the pronunciation of the word caterwaul gives me a sense of its meaning

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by Deelighted

Oh boy I remember hearing that phrase a lot as a teen!


Just the pronunciation of the word caterwaul gives me a sense of its meaning

I'll bet caterwaul is an all American word. I'll also bet it either was invented by Mark Twain or it comes from a native American language.

2 seconds later....
Wrong again! The word comes from middle English. It comes from a cat's wail.

[Gerania]

Originally Posted by banjomike

I'll bet caterwaul is an all American word. I'll also bet it either was invented by Mark Twain or it comes from a native American language.

2 seconds later....
Wrong again! The word comes from middle English. It comes from a cat's wail.

That sounds about right. My son's cat wauls.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by Gerania

That sounds about right. My son's cat wauls.

Yes. The word does sound like a cat.

[Deelighted]

murmur

[Tantalust]

"I Like Ike"

[Gfab1]

brouhaha

[Tantalust]

'He/she's got more of those than Carter has little liver pills.'

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by Tantalust

'He/she's got more of those than Carter has little liver pills.'

Wow... That's a real throwback to earlier times.

Carter's Little Liver Pills came on the market in the 1880s. The pills never had a thing to do with treating the liver. They were an extremely powerful laxative.

The product's success came from the convenience of taking a little pill instead of a half-bottle of some nasty tasting liquid to get the same relief. The name came from the belief that constipation caused the liver to become ill, along with other mysterious organ functions when a person was constipated.

What's most interesting to me is how long they remained popular. For most of our history, every illness a person caught was believed to be cured by a purgative.
Until the mid-20th century, most folk's diet made a laxative a weekly necessity, so it is natural that purgatives were thought to have special curative powers.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, America's first famous physician, compounded some similar pills for Merriwether Lewis to take on the Lewis and Clark expedition. They were called "Rush's Thunderbolts" and the crew swore by them.

The Thunderbolts probably contained some mercury salts, or something as toxic, but we will never know.

Rush kept his recipe secret. He made a fortune selling them after they were endorsed by Lewis and Clark. They became a part of every immigrant's first-aid kit, an essential for moving west, for the rest of Rush's life.

Carter's was eventually sued for false advertising in the 1960s, and was forced to remove the "Liver" out of the pill's description. Once they were marketed as Carter's Little Pills, they didn't sell so well anymore and eventually faded away.