catnip for the ladies

[Laurence Horn]

On Aug 14, 2014, at 11:42 AM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:

> 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

Seems like Jack was just catnip for the cats and not the ladies (assuming the "her" in question is a lady and not a cat.)

LH
> 
> 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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>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>> 
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> 
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