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

[Martin Schneider]

Thanks for the tips. I am well aware of Ngram Viewer but I suspect you guys
are more skilled at using it.

One of the movies that got ensnared in my net that was most telling about
all of this was *The Cheyenne Social Club*, a western/comedy featuring
James Stewart and Henry Fonda. The entire point of the movie is that a town
ends up more or less legalizing the local 'cat house' (ahem) and the
purportedly risible portion of the plot is how these supposedly
self-respecting citizens just .... patronize the place in broad daylight!
Without shame! What a thigh-slapper!

The various sexual revolutions of that moment ended up making that movie,
tolerably popular in its day, all but incomprehensible to modern audiences,
and thank god for that.

On Mon, Jul 27, 2026 at 8:34 PM Emily Gordon <
0000205244c4ee9d-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:

> A Hollywood studio has a fine stable of actors. One ends up in the doghouse
> for going to a cathouse. Another lands in the fish tank for flipping
> chickens*.
>
> * stole the last term from this Substack collection of criminal slang by
> Jason Crowley, “Dictionary of Crime, 6th Edition,” linked below. Is it the
> same resource as Jay Robert Nash's “Dictionary of Crime: Criminal Justice,
> Criminology, & Law Enforcement”? No, I think it’s an original collection.
> Please weigh in if you know.
>
>
> https://open.substack.com/pub/crimeandpsychology/p/dictionary-of-crime-6th-edition?r=ayt&utm_medium=ios
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 27, 2026 at 2:33 PM Rich Lowenthal <
> 000018596069864c-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> > There is also the similar term "cat flat." Even more obsolete than "cat
> > house" though.
> >
> >
> > ------ Original Message ------
> > From "ADSGarson O'Toole"
> > <00001aa1be50b751-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > To ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Date 7/27/2026 5:26:55 PM
> > Subject Re: the slow, or fast, demise of the cat-house
> >
> > >Interesting topic. Here is a start. Green's Dictionary of Slang (GDoS)
> > >has an excellent entry for the noun cat-house. Here are the first and
> > >last citations.
> > >
> > >https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/moa5iyi
> > >
> > >[Begin excerpt from GDoS]
> > >cat-house n.
> > >1. (US) a brothel.
> > >
> > >1850 [US] Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 10 Aug. n.p.: The biggest
> > >kind of cat house, including girls, pimp, French spring bed-steads,
> > >three-dollar per bottle chapmagne (cider) and all the other fixin’s.
> > >...
> > >2020 [Aus] D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 29: ‘Every cathouse in every
> > >port, you’ll find sliced pockets in the mattresses’.
> > >[End excerpt from GDoS]
> > >
> > >Google Books Ngram Viewer is a flawed but interesting tool for tracing
> > >the popularity of words and phrases over time which you may already
> > >know about.
> > >
> > >https://books.google.com/ngrams/
> > >
> > >The following graphs do not distinguish between the different senses
> > >of "cat house".
> > >
> > >The OED has three senses for cat-house:
> > >
> > >(a) a movable pent-house used in early times by besiegers to protect
> > >themselves in approaching fortifications
> > >(b) a house for cats
> > >(c) a bothel
> > >
> > >Here is a pointer to the graph for "cat house"
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22cat+house%22&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3
> > >
> > >Here is a pointer to the graph for "cathouse"
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cathouse&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3
> > >
> > >Garson
> > >
> > >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
> > >
> > >------------------------------------------------------------
> > >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > --
> > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
> > www.avast.com
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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