drink the kool-aid (1982, 1985)

[Sam Clements]

A slightly earlier cite using newspaperarchive.  (Allen Ginsberg speaking at
Gettysburg College)

20 February 1981  _Gettysburg(PA) Times_   Front page, col. 1

"We are all being put in the place of the citizens of Jonestown, being told
by our leaders to drink the Kool Aid of nuclear power."

At least, I hope this is the same meaning.

Sam Clements


----- Original Message -----
From: "Benjamin Zimmer" <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2010 16:06
Subject: drink the kool-aid (1982, 1985)


> OED3 dates "drink the kool-aid" ('to demonstrate unquestioning
> obedience or loyalty') to 1987. Here it is from 1982, metaphorically
> extended from the Jonestown massacre:
>
> ---
> 1982 John Caris _Reality Inspector_ 112 Did contemporary society now
> have a leakage problem; was it losing its survival consciousness; was
> it attempting a global Jonestown incident? How long would people
> continue to drink the kool-ade of environmental pollution and
> tranquilized thinking?
> http://books.google.com/books?id=wlcMzrtP0c4C&pg=PA112
> ---
>
> In a 2005 thread I noted that, for some, the expression could be
> understood as relating not to Jonestown but to Ken Kesey's Electric
> Kool-Aid Acid Tests:
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0509D&L=ADS-L&P=25814
>
> Also suggested by the Wikipedia entry:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid
>
> The acid-spiked alternative reading is at play in this 1985 cite:
>
> ---
> 1985 _Akron (OH) Beacon Journal_ 26 June (NewsBank) Even if you don't
> drink the Kool-Aid, a Grateful Dead show is a trip.
> ---
>
> Most of the other mid-'80s cites in the databases are Jonestownesque,
> however:
>
> ---
> 1985 Carole Bayer Sager _Extravagant Gestures_ 40 How lucky for both
> of us that you were not in Jonestown, for surely you would have drank
> the Kool-Aid.
> http://books.google.com/books?id=whINWQng1dUC
> ---
> 1985 _Washington Post_ 23 Sep. C1/2 What he didn't want, Foley was
> telling Joyce Aboussie, Gephardt's campaign manager, was "what I call
> the politics of Jim Jones, you know, that 'let's drink the Kool-Aid'
> kind of downer."
> ---
>
> Still, I wonder if the happier evocation of acid tests helped to keep
> the image of "drinking the kool-aid" from being too much of a
> "downer."
>
> --bgz
>
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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