catnip for the ladies

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Here is an example with a man described as catnip that seems to be negative.

Title: The New Missioner
Author: Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
Year: 1907
Publisher: The McClure Company, New York
Chapter: 19
Quote Page: 270

http://books.google.com/books?id=eWspAQAAIAAJ&q=catnip#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
"It's been six weeks an' more since Jack wrote her, commandin' her to
come back the minute she got the letter, an' she ain't paid no more
attention to it than if he was catnip," announced Mrs. Thomas.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 2:18 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: catnip for the ladies
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Adumbrated here, re Rudolph Valentino (d. 1926):
>
> 1927 H. L. Mencken _Prejudices: Sixth Series_  (N.Y.: Knopf) 311 : Here was
> a young man who was leading daily the dream of millions of other young men.
> Here was one who was catnip to women.
>
> It may have appeared slightly earlier in Mencken & Nathan's _American
> Mercury_.
>
> JL
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 8:56 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      catnip for the ladies
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> A recent _Vanity Fair_ quoted Ava Gardner in the 1980s as describing Mickey
>> Rooney as "catnip for the ladies." (No, I am not making this up.)
>>
>> 659,000 Google strikes.
>>
>> Earlier:
>>
>> 1943 _Billboard_  (Jan. 9) 20: Frank Sinatra....Boyish appearance and
>> mannerisms all catnip for the ladies.
>>
>> 1949 Parke Cummings, in _Collier's Mag._  (Nov. 12) 59 : Everybody on the
>> street knew that the big tenor was said to be catnip for the ladies, so the
>> women writers would snicker and ask Willie if he couldn't sneak them into
>> Kirk's dressing room some dark night.
>>
>> 1952 _Elyria [O.] Chronicle Telegram_ (June 12) 36:
>> It is mighty nice to have put 50 years away and hear that you are just now
>> becoming catnip for the ladies, but the sad truth is that you never hear
>> this until you are 50 years old.
>>
>> 1962 _Blytheville [Ark.] Courier News_ (March 8) 6: The darkly handsome
>> [George] Maharas [sic]..."busted out" of New York's Hell's Kitchen to
>> become catnip for the ladies.
>>
>> Cf. later(?) "feline" attached to femininity.  And of course the P-word
>> (perhaps a preconscious influence on all this?).
>>
>> JL
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> truth."1943
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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