Miracle-Potion Pitch

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there, this is Lauren from Waco, Texas.

Hey, Lauren.

Hi, Lauren. Welcome to the program.

Thanks a lot.

What can we help you with today?

Okay, well, I’m originally from Houston.

I’m a fifth-generation Houstonian.

They don’t make those anymore.

But I grew up on the north side,

And my grandmother was kind of a, let’s say, a colorful lady.

And one of the things that she used to say,

And it would just rattle off her tongue,

She would use it for something that she thought was great, that was just wonderful for lots of things,

Something like WD-40 or like vinegar for household uses or anything like that.

And she would say, it curls your hair, cleans your teeth, and makes childbirth a pleasure.

And that was a phrase that she would just rattle off for something like that.

And I have used it myself and think it’s funny and quirky and hilarious, but have no idea where it might have come from.

It curls your hair, cleans your teeth, and makes childbirth a pleasure.

That’s it.

I’ll tell you what my secret is when I research these terms.

I go to two places that are online and pretty free, mostly free.

Google Books and Google News Archive have immense archives of texts.

And if you search in both of those right now, you’re going to come up with, now look for just small parts of your phrase.

Don’t look for the whole thing.

Look for, for example, just makes childbirth a pleasure.

Just look for it curls your hair or something like that.

And you’ll come up with a lot of variation.

I mean, dozens if not hundreds of variations on this phrase, all right?

And you’re right.

So what you’re going to find there is this being used again and again and again in a lot of variations.

Here’s one.

Cleans your teeth, curls your hair, and makes you feel like a millionaire.

That one rhymes.

Cures moles, colds, sore holes, and makes childbirth a pleasure.

Here’s one from Esquire magazine in 1960.

Tequila cleans the teeth, perfumes the breath, does not bind in the crotch, and makes childbirth a pleasure.

My goodness.

And then my favorite is from a 1963 article in the L.A. Times about hypnosis.

Now, most of the time, this expression and all of its variations are used to talk about alcohol or liquids or some kinds of, just like you said, potions of some kind, right?

Right.

This one is about hypnosis.

Cures hives, aids digestion, eases pain, rejuvenates the aging sex glands,

Fine for neurosis, pitchers’ arm boxes, morale, short stops, legs,

Will stop the smoking habit, overindulgence in food and spirits,

Ends fingernail biting, makes childbirth a pleasure.

And so there’s a ton of these, and it’s clear that the writers of these things

Have had a ball in inventing all kinds of new variations.

Well, I don’t think any of these would probably pass FDA approval.

No. No, they would not.

But I’ll tell you, as far as the origin of this, I’m almost 100% certain that you are 100% right,

Which is it probably came from an ad that was on the radio or in the magazines

That was just pounded into the eyes of readers or the ears of listeners.

Probably a legitimate real ad, maybe, with a little bit of tongue-in-cheek.

And that’s where she picked it up.

I would not be surprised.

Sort of like a jingle.

Yeah, sort of like a jingle.

The earliest use of this in any form that I can find actually isn’t ironic or humorous.

It seems like they genuinely met it.

It’s from a book called Exits from the Pearly Gates from 1919 by a woman named Lucretia Graves.

And in there, among a whole ton of other things, is a list of Japanese remedies.

And there’s one of the remedies that’s called Mother’s Friend.

And they do not tell you what the ingredients are.

They simply list the name.

And the description of this remedy, Mother’s Friend, is makes childbirth a pleasure and drives fear from the mother’s soul.

Some of these things might actually be really used.

Somebody actually believed that it would make childbirth a pleasure.

Sure.

I suspect this remedy, like many of the others, probably is a form of opium.

Well, I think anything that would make childbirth a pleasure would probably be likely to sell like hotcakes.

Don’t you imagine?

Yeah.

And curl your hair.

And curl.

Well, my wife always says that our son is the cure for the very problems he causes.

Lauren, this is great.

Thank you so much for calling with us.

And I’m just so glad for your sake that your grandmother didn’t memorize that really long one that Grant mentioned.

Well, thank you so much.

I’ll use the Google Books from now on.

And I also like your tip about searching just a piece of it because that was also an error I made.

Yeah, that’s helpful.

Yeah, you’ll find all kinds of wonderful stuff on this.

Thanks for calling, Lauren.

Okay, thank you.

Take care now.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, what’s the linguistic heirloom that has been passed down to you from the previous generations?

Come and tell us about it, 877-929-9673, or tell us about it in an email, words@waywordradio.org.