[Ads-l] the slow, or fast, demise of the cat-house

[Stephen Goranson]

Martin,
Have you checked Green's Dictionary of Slang?

https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/voniftq#sn1
for cat

and
https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/moa5iyi
for cat house

Stephen


On Mon, Jul 27, 2026 at 4:52 PM Martin Schneider <
000024dc089a88e9-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> Dialect enthusiasts!
>
> Fifteen or so years ago, I embarked on a project that involved tracking,
> and watching, the #1 movies, in sequence, starting from 1970. The movie had
> to be the listed box office winner in a given week, and the weeks supplied
> the chronology. As I watched these movies, I noticed this term that is no
> longer in use. It came up in multiple movies. "Cat house," to mean,
> bordello, brothel, a place where women of ill repute are available, that
> sort of thing.
>
> "What'ya think you're doing, this isn't a cat house!" Such lines were
> littered across the 1970 set of movies.
>
> Obviously, the term stood out for not really existing in our time. What
> happened to it? Where did it come from? When did it die? These are things
> we could track.
>
> Thanks,
> Martin
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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