cotton curtain
n.— «Cotton Curtain. Five thousand miles apart, two men speaking different languages were last week discussing “free voting.” Said one: “I will arrest any man who is against us…on election day….” Said the other: “Let a handful vote this year and two handfuls will vote next year. You will be justified in going to any extreme on election day…to keep them from voting.” The first man was Colonel Moczar, chief of Security Police of Communist-run Lodz in Poland. He was trying to keep followers of the Polish Peasant Party’s Stanislaw Mikolajczyk from voting (see FOREIGN NEWS). The second was Theodore C. (“The Man”) Bilbo, inciting fellow Mississippians to “take care of” any Negroes who might want to vote in his state’s primaries.» —“Cotton Curtain” Time July 8, 1946. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
A kerfuffle is a fuss, bother, or disturbance. It’s from Scots curfuffle, likely from Scottish Gaelic car, meaning “turn,” “bend,” or “twist,” plus fuffle, a Scots word that means “to disorder” or “to ruffle.” Early forms like carfuffle and...
In 1916, a small-town newspaper in Pennsylvania printed a fanciful item about a local gathering with a guest list that included, among others, Miss Ella Vader, Mr. Ray Zor, and other punny names. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...