cold turkey

[Gerald Cohen]

At 6:13 AM -0600 1/30/02, Laurence Horn wrote:
>...Related query:  whether or not we assume that the drug-withdrawal
>sense is the earliest for "cold turkey", whence the metaphor?  Why a
>turkey?
>
*****

I've compiled material on  "cold turkey" in the article: "Material
 From the Tamony Files On _Cold Turkey_", _Studies in Slang, IV,ed.:
Gerald Leonard Cohen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 1995; pp.
89-97.----On page 89 I quote from the _San Francisco Examiner_, May
28, 19978,Sunday Punch, p.1, col. 1, Herb Caen's column:
        "Meanwhile: Thanks to all the ex-junkies who've filled me in
on the origin of the term 'cold turkey,' something I wondered about a
few columns ago.
It derives from the hideous combination of goosepimples and what Wm.
Burroughs calls 'the cold burn' that addicts suffer as they kick the
habit.  Hasn't a thing to do with what's still in the fridge four
days after Thanksgiving."

---Gerald Cohen