Kool-Aid drinker = dupe of propagandists, publicists, etc.

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 10:36:57 -0400, Orion Montoya wrote:

>Last week in conversation about some software*, a co-worker said I
>"hadn't drunk the [program] kool-aid yet."  In this sense a kool-aid
>drinker is not a dupe but a convert.  In fact, I suppose, he was
>referring to kool-aid drinking from Jim Jones' perspective: that as
>soon as I drink the kool-aid, my life will be better and I will be
>transported to a higher plane [of efficiency].  Perhaps I should be
>disturbed by this.

The Jim Jones reading appears to be the most common one. See:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/K/Kool-Aid.html
http://www.wordspy.com/words/drinktheKool-Aid.asp
http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/journal_vol11/0406_lang.asp
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45180-2000Apr30

The Jargon File entry mentions "resonances with Ken Kesey's Electric
Kool-Aid Acid Tests", and that's taken as the primary reading by some:

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=682567


--Ben Zimmer