catnip for the ladies

[Jonathan Lighter]

Adumbrated here, re Rudolph Valentino (d. 1926):

1927 H. L. Mencken _Prejudices: Sixth Series_  (N.Y.: Knopf) 311 : Here was
a young man who was leading daily the dream of millions of other young men.
Here was one who was catnip to women.

It may have appeared slightly earlier in Mencken & Nathan's _American
Mercury_.

JL


On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 8:56 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      catnip for the ladies
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A recent _Vanity Fair_ quoted Ava Gardner in the 1980s as describing Mickey
> Rooney as "catnip for the ladies." (No, I am not making this up.)
>
> 659,000 Google strikes.
>
> Earlier:
>
> 1943 _Billboard_  (Jan. 9) 20: Frank Sinatra....Boyish appearance and
> mannerisms all catnip for the ladies.
>
> 1949 Parke Cummings, in _Collier's Mag._  (Nov. 12) 59 : Everybody on the
> street knew that the big tenor was said to be catnip for the ladies, so the
> women writers would snicker and ask Willie if he couldn't sneak them into
> Kirk's dressing room some dark night.
>
> 1952 _Elyria [O.] Chronicle Telegram_ (June 12) 36:
> It is mighty nice to have put 50 years away and hear that you are just now
> becoming catnip for the ladies, but the sad truth is that you never hear
> this until you are 50 years old.
>
> 1962 _Blytheville [Ark.] Courier News_ (March 8) 6: The darkly handsome
> [George] Maharas [sic]..."busted out" of New York's Hell's Kitchen to
> become catnip for the ladies.
>
> Cf. later(?) "feline" attached to femininity.  And of course the P-word
> (perhaps a preconscious influence on all this?).
>
> JL
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."1943
>
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"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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