Caboodle
a word with a mysterious past - and a riff on why men should pay attention to their partners
Let’s say your girlfriend walks out on you, taking everything in the apartment with her, and you find yourself down at the pub with your best friend, nursing an expensive craft beer (no point drinking rubbish just because life’s handed you a lemon) and he, somewhat incredulously, asks “she took everything?”, and you reply as you make a mental note to remember the name of this beer for next time, “she did, bro - the whole kit and caboodle”.
The first thing you might be thinking, jilted reader, is no way would you ever employ such an outdated saying. Not even half-drunk and wallowing in self pity.
Fair enough. But while you may not, many others would. Around 1980, the popularity of the saying grew exponentially and today it’s fairly common.
The second thing you may be thinking is “I know what a kit is, but what on earth is a caboodle?”
Caboodle derives from boodle, a 19th century slang term for money of dubious origin such as gambling or shady business dealings. It’s thought to have its origins in the Old English word bottel, meaning bunch or bundle.
For many years, the most common form of the saying was actually the whole kit and boodle, used to describe the entirety of the subject at hand, such as apartment contents. Then, around 1950 the whole kit and caboodle edged out its shorter version before, as you know, experiencing a sudden surge in popularity in the 1980s - a wave it continues to ride.
While it's tempting to think caboodle was invented to provide alliteration and rhythm, history suggests otherwise. Caboodle appeared on its own long before the whole kit and caboodle did, which means it was already available if wanted. Why it overtook the whole kit and boodle is something of a mystery.
That would be the end of the story if I weren’t about to tell you yet another riveting fact about this saying. Don’t go anywhere.
Consider that while you can say the whole kit and caboodle, you can’t say the whole caboodle and kit. Kit and caboodle is what linguists call an irreversible binomial; a word pair whose order can’t be swapped.
English abounds with word pairs bound by this rule, which often has nothing to do with logic or common sense. There’s no good reason, for example, why life and death shouldn’t be death and life, or the birds and the bees shouldn’t be the bees and the birds. That’s just the way those sayings go and that’s that.
Sometimes alliteration, rhythm or vowel repetition might be at play, but only sometimes.
Before they were called irreversible binomials, a monstrosity of a name cooked up by some killjoy in the 1950s, such word pairs went under the far more alluring epithet “terminological imbroglio”. Oh, modern linguists, what devil stole your souls away!
A small number of irreversible binomials have at least one word that’s never used except in that expression. Say kith, spick, yon or lo to your friend at the pub and that’s the last beer you’ll be knocking back under his watch. But say kith and kin, spick and span, hither and yon or lo and behold and sit back as those frothy brews keep on coming.
That makes such idioms an extra challenge for adults learning English. Having studied the vocabulary word by word, they’re now required to master idioms that draw on words not used in any other context.
What a cruel bunch we English speakers are.
Not only that, our language is also stuffed with idioms whose meanings differ from those suggested by a literal interpretation of their component words. Kick the bucket, barking up the wrong tree, flip the bird, and take the piss are but four examples. In some cases, a little creative thinking might help the unsuspecting migrant, but hand on heart, do you reckon you could guess at the meaning of kick the bucket or flip the bird? Me neither.
As for your former girlfriend, we all tried to warn you that if you didn’t start putting your laundry in the hamper like she asked, things would get ugly. Which reminds me, she didn’t take everything. You’ll find your dirty socks and underwear on the street below the bedroom window.
Bits and specious
If you’d followed Wheaton’s Law - officially my new favourite guide to life - your girlfriend might still be with you. The law, “don’t be a dick”, is named after actor Wil Wheaton, who is reportedly a most decent human being. Don't Be a Dick Day falls on his birthday, July 29.
New York-based Rebecca Ericson is a Masters student in applied linguistics with a special interest in second language acquisition - and someone I admire. Way more knowledgeable than me on linguistic matters, she believes language belongs to everyone, not just the self-appointed arbiters of what’s correct. Check out this recent post on bilingual education - a hot topic in her home state of Arizona, and likely to be of interest to New Zealand readers who care about the teaching of Māori.
Apparently, some older people get grumpy when a young person responds to a “thank you” with “no problem” rather than “you’re welcome”. Reader Tony Coyle has shared this interesting article on the matter. For the record, anyone who gets grumpy at someone who does them a service is most certainly in breach of Wheaton’s Law.
I’ve been a fan of British musician Brian Eno my whole adult life, not least of all for his witty word plays. But his latest work, the darkly beautiful Foreverandevernomore, trades that in for straightforward lyrics that address the potential end of humanity. It’s gorgeous in the way that a Requiem Mass is gorgeous, or Tom Waits’ Hold On or Nick Cave’s Brompton Oratory. Check it out.
Quote of the week
I’m single by choice. Not my choice.
Orny Adams