colder than a witches tit

[Archived Topic]

Anyh one know how old this is?
Mort, NY

Submitted by ( - )

[Archived Reply]

Sorry Mort, but his one is harder to nail down than the balls on a brass monkey.
Ken

Reply from ( - )

[Archived Reply]

Mort, Previous reply was from a Ken who thinks he is the only one in the world – an impression continually reinforced by all the attention he gets from his mother. However, I am the other one! (<: )
________________________________________________________________________________

My impression was that this expression was as old as the hills. And that’s what I though when I heard it back in the forties or fifties from the country folks I was visiting. I’m certain I heard it in this time frame because I remember transporting this exotic and wicked stuff back to NYC – definitely not Brooklyn lingo – after hearing many such colorful ditties (colder than a well diggers ass, and, oh, so much more!) after spending time in the hill country.

To my surprise, however, Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang claims this one came up in the 1960s (long after my early hill experience). This is almost certainly wrong! The highly regarded lexicographer Erik Partridge, however, dates it from the 1930s or earlier, which sounds more like it to me.
____________________________________________________________________________________

Cassell”s’ Dictionary of Slang

COLDER THAN A WITCH’S TIT phrase [1960s and still in use] 1. of weather very cold 2. of emotions, very unfriendly
____________________________________________________________________________________

Shorter Dictionary of Catch Phrases by Fergusson from the work of Erik Partridge & Paul Beale

COLD AS A WITCH’S TIT (, AS): extremely cold. Used in the USA since the 1930s or earlier, and occasionally in the UK. The phrase also exists in the intensified form ‘colder than a witch’s tit.’
____________________________________________________________________________________

Ken G – January 18, 2003

Reply from Ken Greenwald (Fort Collins, CO - U.S.A.)

[Archived Reply]

Some of the female contributors here would be highly qualified to speak authoritativley, If they can put down their brooms.

Reply from ( - )

[Archived Reply]

From _A Dictionary of Catch Phrases, Second Edition_ (1985) by Eric Partridge & Paul Beale:
cold as a witch's tit -- it's (as). 'The temperature of the ambient atmosphere is extremely low. Since witches were traditionally rather hot-blooded, this may reflect a confusion between "witch" and the obsolescent "litch", a bundle, a handful, of, e.g. tangled straw (_Webster's Second International_, 1934). US proletarian, from 1930s or earlier, now obsolescent' (Robert Claiborne, 1978). Also, of course, intensified: _colder than a witch's tit_, applied to unfriendliness in Canadian usage, as Robin Leech notes, 1979.
----------
See also The Straight Dope at http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mwitchti.html

Reply from Susumu Enomoto (Shiraokamachi - Japan)

[Archived Reply]

Having heard this expression growing up, I'm certain it predates the sixties. I've heard it referenced to the idea that witches, as old hags, were frigid. And for those truly cold circumstances, it was "cold as a witch's tit in a brass bra".
JGF
Ohio

Reply from ( - )

[Archived Reply]

Ken-- does this mean we are the only 2 kens in the world?
Ken ( the first and original{accept no substitutes} Ken.

Reply from ( - )

[Archived Reply]

Were Succubi witches?

Reply from ( - )

[Archived Reply]

Subject: How women cause war! Robert Ray Hedges Author
From: istopdeath
Date: Apr 12, 2003 12:03am

April 12, 2003 Certainly we can see that women (mothers) provide a continuous supply of warriors as all persons are created in mothers. What has not been made clear is the psychological mechanism that generates the negative emotional energy neccessary to kill another mothers UNATTENDED child.

Certainly we can also see from prostitution that males are considered by humanity, in general, to be less valuable sexually, as they must pay for sex one way or another. This results in a low self worth/self esteem which is experienced as being created as expendable. That the mothers of sons have not objected to this devaluation of self worth is evidence of a genetically encoded tyranny that has escaped mainstream psychology for hundreds if not thousands of years. If mothers WERE leashed to their sons in any war, there would be no fighting, especially if the sexual devalution had been apologized for and completely retracted. How women cause war! Robert Ray Hedges: Author

The inability of mainsteam media to pick up this story is evidence that humanity does not have the capacity to deal with truth, love or wars' resolution. Sad for the wounded and dead and those who care about them, that womens' fear based war is without end. How women cause war! Robert Ray Hedges: Author

copies posted at:

http://bbs.slate.msn.com/?id=3936&m=6491814

http://www.powa.org/stafpost/_disc4/000001a6.htm

http://www.obernuefemann.com/Discussion1/0000002d.htm

Reply from ( - )

[Archived Reply]

"Cold as a witches tit" has been around for far longer than most people are aware. In fact, there have been records of a derivation of this phrase being used during the Salem Trials themselves, as justification for some of the torueous "tests". At that time, it was used to refer to the "unnatural" state of the witch, equating her with death, and the ability to sustain the life of an infant.

Danz

Reply from ( - )

[Archived Reply]

Actually, it is the first line of a filabuster used by an Arkansas congressman in the 1930s. It is a very long ballad.
leeschriver@email.com

Reply from ( - )

[Archived Reply]

As a medical photographer working at the USC Health Sciences campus I produced a lot of teaching slides for physicians. One of the photos was of a "witch's tit". It was from a medical text book and was a classic "text book case" - it showed a human breast growing from the arm pit. It seems the mammary gland milk line in humans normally only makes one breast on each side of the body. However, like other mammals, the milk line runs along the length of the torso up into the armpit area. This is known and documented in modern medical science.
But people in the dark ages thought this was a mark of the devil etc. etc. Thus, a female suspected of witchcraft could be inspected for this abnormality, and probably killed for it.
Another interesting thing the human body can do is to produce small horns or claws made of fingernail material. The medical photos I saw were of very small, 1/2-inch projections growing from the wrist area and another photo of small projections growing from the forehead area.
Why a "witch's tit" would be misconstrued as "cold" is really a misinformation of the public kind.
-RichC.
WA

Reply from ( - )

[Archived Reply]

"Cold as a dead witches tit in a stainless steel bra"
is they way I often hear this.

Reply from ( - )

[Archived Reply]

There is an incongruity between the phrase only dating back to the 1930's and ties to witch hunts --too big of a time gap. And none of the theories tying the phrase to a witches relation to the devil explain the why and what-of-it of the temperature of the gland. Somebody please give me a theory I can get my mind (or lips) around.

Reply from Scott Rones (Sebastopol - U.S.A.)