Spit baths are quick cleanups with a moistened tissue, napkin, or towel, the sort Lee in Arcadia, Indiana, remembers getting before going out in public. Another listener recalls a University of Tennessee fraternity term from the late 1950s: SAE shower, a cursory cleanup with deodorant and aftershave that poked fun at Sigma Chi’s rival, Sigma Alpha Epsilon. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “A “Spit Bath” Wipes the Body with a Moistened Napkin”
I have a couple more examples of abbreviated baths sent in to us by our listeners.
Lee in Arcadia, Indiana wrote to say,
My mother used to give us spit baths before we went out in public.
A spit bath consists of moistening a Kleenex or paper napkin and wiping off anything on our face.
You remember those?
Very familiar.
Yeah, I got sleepy wiped from my eyes that way all the time.
And then David Aiken wrote to say that he used a term at the University of Tennessee in the late 1950s.
He says, I was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, and we had a term for the cursory cleanup using deodorant and aftershave.
It was called taking an SAE shower, and that was a snide reference to their biggest rival, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.
This is a show about words and language and the things we say, how we say them, and why.
