"=?windows-1252?Q?=85_?=brag about _his_/herself" [NC]; _drop_ = "opioid in pill form."

[Eric Nielsen]

Many years ago I viewed an early 1900's Botanicals collection, and I was
struck by the fact that the "pills" in an opium vial were spherical--unlike
the flattened pills we see today. Closer to the shape of today's cough
drops.
Of course, " a drop of opium" would often refer to liquid drop of a
tincture.

I found this example on Google Images:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3180/2848330393_fa9ccda89d.jpg

 Eric


On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 6:38 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I've never heard _drop_ so used, before toda. But its meaning, in
> context, is obvious. Is it familiar to anyone else? I heard it used in
> the wild by someone ca. a dekkid my junior. (Uh, that means that the
> speaker was over sixty, Dan.)
>
> IAC, while researching this _drop_ in the UD, I came across the phrase.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org