Heard on The Doctors: _bug juice_

[Alice Faber]

On 3/14/12 7:46 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
> On Mar 14, 2012, at 4:30 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Laurence Horn<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: Heard on The Doctors: _bug juice_
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Mar 14, 2012, at 6:43 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>
>>> A doctor explains his use of a term:
>>>
>>> "_Bug juice_ is doctor slang for 'anti-biotics'."
>>>
>>>
>>> This meaning isn't in HDAS or UD and, as fate would have it, neither
>>> is the only meaning for _bug juice_ that I know:
>>>
>>> "soy sauce."
>>
>> Hunh.  For us survivors of summer camp in Maine (early 1950s), and probably elsewhere (and elsewhen), "bug juice" will forever designate oversweetened (if that's not oxymoronic) kool-aid type beverages, almost always red.
>
> common usage in summer camps all over the U.S., from at least 60 years ago. (only for boys? i doubt that, but i don't have evidence.)  don't know why it isn't in the slang dictionaries. (not in Green either.)

Definitely not only for boys...


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Alice Faber                                       faber at haskins.yale.edu
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