Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Kit and caboodle


The whole kit and caboodle is a term that I recall from my childhood, as in "If you kids bring the whole kit and caboodle for vacation, you will be riding on the rooftop." (The phrase seems to go hand in hand with everything but the kitchen sink.) So what is caboodle anyway, and how did it get hooked up with kit?

Let's dive in and find out.
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Caboodle shows up in Americanisms, New and Old as the whole caboodle, as follows:
A pleonastic expression for "the whole." Thought to be an enlarged form of boodle, which is sometimes used in the same sense, and which is derived from the old English "bottel," a bundle....  Caboodle is general throughout the States, and has now almost completely supplanted boodle, which is more usually applied in a totally different sense.
The Online Etymological Dictionary says for kit and caboodle:
also kaboodle, 1870, earlier kit and boodle (1855), kit and cargo (1848), according to OED from kit (n.1) in dismissive sense "number of things viewed as a whole" (1785) + boodle "lot, collection," perhaps from Dutch boedel "property." Century Dictionary compares the whole kit, of persons, "every one" (1785).

Since I was thinking of the kitchen-sink business, I checked the Online Etymological Dictionary and found the following:
... everything but (or and) the kitchen sink is attested from 1944, from World War II armed forces slang, in reference to intense bombardment.
 So, in my Silver Rush series, my characters can pack the whole kit and caboodle, but they better not try to bring everything but the kitchen sink.

Traveling in style in the mid-19th century meant packing the whole kit and caboodle.
The Arrival in Lisbon, From "Journal of a Visit to Madeira and Portugal (1853-1854)," 1854, by Isabella de França (1794-1880) [Public domain]




2 comments:

Liz V. said...

Small wonder the kitchen sink phrase is so familiar to me, though kit and caboodle also got mentioned. On the whole, 75 years is better than the alternative. 😏

Glad your trip was fun! Keep hearing how lovely Vancouver is.

Ann Parker said...

Hi Liz! Vancouver *was* lovely. I'd like to return when I have more time to explore.
Isn't funny how those phrases from our personal past just keep popping up? Especially the ones from childhood (at least, for me!). "Groovy, man," for instance, doesn't "resonate" for me in the same way, although I was also part of the "groovy generation.")