Kyle from Euless, Texas, wonders about the phrase I don’t cotton to this meaning “I don’t agree with this.” It originated in the textile industry, where cotton is prepared to adhere to another fabric. In the same way, some agricultural terms have given rise to useful metaphors in English; the expressions tough row to hoe, aftermath, and broadcast all originated in the language of farming. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “To Cotton on to Something”
Hi there, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Kyle from Uless, Texas.
Hi, Kyle. Welcome.
I have a question about a phrase.
My wife, a few weeks ago, showed me a posting on her social media account that had been put up by someone.
And one of the comments underneath the posting was made by a third person.
And the third person said, I don’t cotton to this.
And she showed it to me, and she said, what does that mean?
And I looked at it, and I thought, well, you know, I guess in context, it would mean that the person doesn’t agree with it, or they don’t like it, or something like that.
But I really didn’t know, I really didn’t have a good answer for it, because I had not heard that phrase before.
So I thought I would call the show and find out what you guys think.
It goes back to when textile manufacture was far more an everyday part of people’s lives, when many people worked in the business, so they raised the materials that would become textiles.
And you might make your own clothes, or at least the clothes were being made around you by other people.
And there’s a thing that you do with some fabrics, which is to raise a nap on it, NAP.
And this means to rough it up so that it’s fuzzy, basically, and it kind of looks like the fuzzy side of Velcro.
And what you do when you raise a nap is it allows you to marry two fabrics together.
So you can marry wool and cotton or different pieces of cotton or different things.
And so that you can create one unit out of them and then make whatever it is that you’re making, clothes or a backpack or a sail or a cover for your Conestora wagon or whatever.
And so to raise a nap then, what happens is around 1700 or so, it starts to pop up since cotton was something that people worked with.
Where you could say it cottoned up or it cottoned to or it cottoned on or it cottoned in to mean that the two fabrics worked together well.
They stuck to each other and became a single piece.
And so as often happens in English, the literal became the metaphorical.
And pretty soon we started to be able to talk about to cotton up to someone, which meant to suck up or grow used to them or to grow to like them or to cotton to and to not cotton on to something.
Talk about agreement or disagreement and that sort of thing.
And that’s where we are today.
So it goes back to textiles, really, and literally to cotton itself and the way that fabrics were put together.
Oh, that’s interesting.
You know what? I had never thought of it that way.
But that, after hearing your explanation of it, it makes a lot of sense.
Yeah.
Yeah, it’s funny, right?
Something that was so important in our Western culture, actually around the world, now is a thing that we don’t participate in.
We don’t participate much, usually, most of us, to the degree that our grandparents or great-grandparents did in making of clothing or making of things out of fabric.
Yeah, I think that that hands-on understanding of the process of the way things work actually contributed a lot to the way people think.
And yeah, based on that, that makes a lot of sense.
I really appreciate you guys.
Yeah, it not only contributes to the way we think, but it gives us useful metaphors for non-literal parts of our lives, right?
Yeah.
Which is why we like farming terms throughout the language, even though most of us don’t farm anymore.
Right, right.
That’s a tough road to hoe, you know?
Like you having to put up with him is a tough road to hoe.
What?
Now then.
Thank you, Kyle.
Kyle, there’s going to be aftermath to this.
Aftermath being an agricultural term that means after the mowing.
So thanks a lot, Kyle.
And thank you for tuning into our broadcast, which is also an agricultural term.
We appreciate it.
That’s right.
If I think of anything else, I’ll be sure to give you guys a call so you can have some more fodder to throw at each other.
Absolutely.
Please do, Kyle.
Take care of yourself.
Thanks, Kyle.
Thank you.
Appreciate y’all.
Thank you.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
It’s everywhere.
The things that we used to be as a culture are embedded in the language.
I love it.
