Transcript of “Duke’s Mixture Was a Tobacco Blend”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Eric, and I’m from Milbank, South Dakota.
Hi, Eric. Welcome to the show.
I am glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
My question is about a term my grandmother used to use, my paternal grandmother, and the phrase is a duke’s mixture.
And she would use that to mean a variety of items or a hodgepodge of things, such as if you were making a stew and threw in various vegetables, all sorts of vegetables and different meats, and maybe some rice, pasta, whatever you were throwing in, you might call that a duke’s mixture.
Wow, that is a duke’s mixture.
And it didn’t have to relate to food.
It could be just a variety of items in something like a second-hand store if you walked in.
And they had related or unrelated items of all sorts on the shelf.
You could say, wow, that’s a real duke’s mixture.
And I’ve only heard one other person use that term, and he was somebody of a younger generation who grew up in another part of the United States.
And I was just wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the origin of this term.
Well, Eric, you’ve given us a great description of the use of this expression, duke’s mixture.
Would you believe it goes back to a kind of tobacco?
Interesting.
And it’s a kind of tobacco that was produced by the Duke Tobacco Company of Durham, North Carolina.
Now, of course, another connection between Durham, North Carolina and the name Duke is Duke University, which was named for this wealthy family, the Duke family, that produced tobacco there in Durham.
The company also made a tobacco you might have heard of called Bull Durham.
But they also made a kind of tobacco called duke’s mixture, named after the family.
And it was advertised with images of cowboys on horseback rolling their own, you know, taking the tobacco out of those little bags and rolling their own cigarettes.
And so it was marketed as this very masculine brand.
So a duke’s mixture originally referred to a kind of cheap tobacco.
It was odds and ends, not the best parts of the leaves.
And they were sold in these little bags.
And so duke’s mixture came to mean a hodgepodge or a mess of things, exactly the kind of thing that you were describing, and also mixed-breed animals, like a mixed-breed dog could be described as a duke’s mixture.
Wow, that is very interesting.
I had no idea.
Yeah, so your grandmother wasn’t rolling her own then.
No, not that I am aware anyway.
-huh.
-huh.
No.
Yeah, well, it’s become generalized since then.
No, I just found that interesting because my grandmother grew up in, spent her whole life in northeastern South Dakota.
And the other gentleman was from a younger generation, and he grew up in Florida.
And so there I didn’t really see a connection.
Yeah, I’m kind of surprised to hear that the younger person used it because, I don’t know, Grant, I don’t think of it as a term that is that common.
No, not anymore.
Among younger generations.
No, most people would say something like Heinz 57 or maybe not even that anymore.
Well, I’m starting to use it a little more often, so I’m reviving it.
Very good.
We approve.
Well, we’re glad to have you on the show.
Call us again sometime, Eric.
All right?
I will.
Thank you guys so much.
I appreciate it.
All right.
Take care of yourself.
Bye-bye.
Okay.
You too.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
I know there are more terms for a mix of things or a mess of things.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
