Heard on The Doctors: _bug juice_

[Larry Sheldon]

On 3/14/2012 6:46 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> ----------------------- Sender:       American Dialect
> Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> Poster:       Arnold
> Zwicky<zwicky at STANFORD.EDU> Subject:      Re: Heard on The Doctors:
> _bug juice_
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  On Mar 14, 2012, at 4:30 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> ----------------------- Sender:       American Dialect
>> Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> Poster:       Laurence
>> Horn<laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> Subject:      Re: Heard on The
>> Doctors: _bug juice_
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
On Mar 14, 2012, at 6:43 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>
>>> A doctor explains his use of a term:
>>>
>>> "_Bug juice_ is doctor slang for 'anti-biotics'."
>>>
>>>
>>> This meaning isn't in HDAS or UD and, as fate would have it,
>>> neither is the only meaning for _bug juice_ that I know:
>>>
>>> "soy sauce."
>>
>> Hunh.  For us survivors of summer camp in Maine (early 1950s), and
>> probably elsewhere (and elsewhen), "bug juice" will forever
>> designate oversweetened (if that's not oxymoronic) kool-aid type
>> beverages, almost always red.
>
> common usage in summer camps all over the U.S., from at least 60
> years ago. (only for boys? i doubt that, but i don't have evidence.)
> don't know why it isn't in the slang dictionaries. (not in Green
> either.)

Common in the Navy in the 1050s for any nominally potable liquid
(including "au jus" and redeye gravy, I think).


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