kit and caboodle

[mscallisto]

I tried to locate the origin long ago and seem to remember getting lost somewhere around "a special glass and the beer that was in it" or something like that.

Where does kit and caboodle come from and just what did it originally mean?

 

[cLFlaVA]

The caboodle in this American expression meaning " the whole lot" is the same as the word boodle, for "a pile of money", deriving from the Dutch boedal, " property". The whole kit, of course, means the entire outfit. The phrase doesn't read " the whole kit and boodle" because Americans like alliteration in speech and added a "k" sound before boodle in the phrase.

Source: QPB Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins By Robert Hendrickson

*cLFlaVA
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Lois: "Peter, you're drunk!"
Peter: "I'm not drunk, I'm just exhausted from stayin' up all night drinking!

 

[CajunCenturion]

The following site World Wide Words has an article on it.

Good Luck
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[ESquared]

For what it's worth, I think threads like this belong in the Making An Impression forum...

General language discussion, you know, since there's no puzzle or challenge here.

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[mscallisto]

mia culpa!

 

[johnwm]

If you post that in the Making An Impression forum, you'll get picked on for sure!

Mea Culpa

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[cLFlaVA]

What does it mean?

*cLFlaVA
----------------------------
Lois: "Peter, you're drunk!"
Peter: "I'm not drunk, I'm just exhausted from stayin' up all night drinking!

 

[SF0751]

Mea Culpa - Latin; "By my own fault". Used in Christian prayers and confession.


Susan
"People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

 

[ESquared]

or, "I am to blame"

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It is better to have honor than a good reputation.
(Reputation is what other people think about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.)

 

[harebrain]

The literal translation of mea culpa that I've always seen is "through my fault." (Three years of latin sticks with you even after thirty years.) Susan, by works for me instead of through, although I don't see where the word "own" comes from. ESquared's version is completely interpretive, grammatically dissimilar to the latin phrase. As Susan states, it is used in prayer: often, a more complete excerpt is mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, which works out to "through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault." This makes the "I am to blame" version even more cumbersome to backform.

I think people try to use it today literally as the slang, "my bad." (Which is grammatically incorrect, but nowadays most people can't even spell, much less parse grammar.)

And if you think etymology and translation lack the nature of a puzzle or challenge, boy, are you wrong!

Getting back to the original question, anybody else hear George Carlin's riff on "kit and caboodle?" It's along the lines of: if you have the whole kit, why do you need a caboodle? Can you get the caboodle without the kit? -- Ah, well, it's much funnier when Carlin tells it.