"like pickles and ice cream"

[Jonathan Lighter]

To sum up:

"Pickles and ice cream"/ "ice cream and pickles" was a meme by the late
1890s connoting "an indigestible food combination that children might eat
foolishly."

By 1960 the meme had generally come to refer humorously to "a strange
and disagreeable craving commonly experienced by pregnant women."

By 1990 "pickles and ice cream" had come, in addition, to stand jocularly
for any two items that proverbially don't or proverbially do go together.

BONUS "go together like peanut butter and jelly":

GB offers this allegedly from 1959: "And conversely, nothing unlocks the
secrets of the potato like meditating on the Psalms. These things go
together like yin and yang, like Martha and Mary, like peanut butter and
jelly."  The next "go together like peanut butter and jelly" isn't till
(apparently) 1966, with very slow growth through the '70s and '80s and
a startling increase in incidence since about 2000.

JL



JL

On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 10:25 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:      "like pickles and ice cream"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The latest Progressive insurance commercial
> http://www.progressive.com/commercials/unicorns.aspx has goofy, affable
> Flo
> telling a young couple that some insurance bundles "go together like peanut
> butter and jelly!" Hubby says, "Like hamburgers and fries!" And pregnant
> wifey says, "Like pickles and ice cream!" When Flo tries to top that with
> "Like unicorns and glitter!" she falls flat. So "like pickles and ice
> cream"
> is supposed to be an unremarkable collocation.
>
>  Google turns up nearly 1,000 hits on "together like pickles and ice
> cream,"
> many or most of them ironic (i.e., they don't go together at all).
>
> According to a 1988 GB snippet:  "Diets and pregnancy seem to go together
> like pickles and ice cream. 'A doctor knows from years and years of
> frustrating experience just how much mothers tend to shovel in,' writes the
> author of one popular birth and baby book." That may be the earliest p&ic
> "go togther ex."
>
> Now for the mysteries.
>
> I first encountered this combination in the '50s as a humorous but typical
> food craving of expectant moms.  This appears to be the nearly universal
> interpretation today. However, a GB search reveals the pairing up of
> "pickles and ice cream" as far back as the 1890s as a combination that may
> be bad for children, or anyone, even if eaten simply at the same meal. A
> 1903 ex., from a medical periodical, humorously connects the combination
> with young, working-class women, but surely they're not all pregnant!  My
> impression is that most early exx. imply litlle more than that children and
> teenagers will gorge on pickles and ice cream (because they have no sense)
> and then get sick.
>
>  A 1968 ex. refers to the craving during pregnancy as "time-honored," but
> GB
> reveals *nothing* relevant before 1967 in a search for "pickles and ice
> cream" + "expecting" [or "expectant"/"pregnant"/"pregnancy"].  It does find
> an unmistakable ex. of the less euphonious "ice cream and pickles" from
> Doris Lessing in "1952" (though WorldCat suggests "1954").
>
> What we know: "pickles and ice cream" seems to have entered pop culture as
> a
> sign of pregnancy no earlier than the 1950s.
>
> What we don't know: Metaphorically, do "pickles and ice cream" go together
> "like love and marriage" (GB: 1950s, also the time when, acc. to the song,
> "Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage").  Or do they "go
> together" metaphorically only in an ironic sense?
>
> JL
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



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