What's the source of the expression/verb "cotton to" (eg "I don't cotton to that idea")

See subject. It’s really a bizarre one. Makes no literal sense, as far as I can see. (Do cotton ball stick? I’m grasping at straws [another strange expression I have no idea about]).

  1. Geographically, the US South?

  2. Also, I can only think of this expression used in the negative, as in “don’t cotton to.”

  3. Does anyone still say it? Did people say it with any sort of frequency, or is this an agreement of the Hollywood Screenwriters Guild about traits of home-spun, seat of the pants, usually cowboy wisdom?
    This post is in honor of our brand-new member cotton.

[QUOTE=Jim Dodge]
“…I don’t rightly know. It just ain’t possible to explain some things, maybe even most things. It’s interesting to wonder on them and do some speculation, but the main thing is you have to accept it - take it for what it is, and get on with your getting."
[/QUOTE]

Seems appropriate; offered as a bump.

Wiki answers

Annie has a better answer so I am completely deleting my lame attempt.

Michael Quinnon from World Wide Worlds has the authoritative answer. Cotton on
It’s complicated, but I’ll try to unravel it for you…

Oh, now that is just all wrong, it is just a sloppy rendering of “caught on”

cotton wrote he comes from a long line of cotton growers. I hope he stops by with some info.

As a British person, the version of this expression I am most familiar with is to “cotton on to” something or other, usually meaning to grasp (intellectually), to get the idea of something, although I do not think this is very far away from the meanings that other posters have mentioned.

I do not see any special reason why this should have anything in particular to do with cotton growing, or the American south. Plenty of people, around the world who have no involvement at all with cotton growing, nevertheless have daily and intimate involvement with cotton in their work or other aspects of their lives. As I have suggested, “cotton on to” is common in Britain. Maybe the expression comes from the cotton mills of Lancashire, home of the industrial revolution. Maybe it comes from seamstresses.

This meaning is rather newer and is indeed not US centric.

“cotton to” (eg "I don’t cottot to that idea)

If we restrict our discussion to your narrow use of the phrase, we can see

[quote=OED} 5. To ‘get on’ together or with each other; to suit each other; to work harmoniously, harmonize, agree. (Const. sometimes together, with.)

Thesaurus »

a. of persons, etc.

1605 Play Stucley in R. Simpson School of Shakspere (1878) I. 169 John a Nokes and John a Style and I cannot cotton.

a1634 J. Day Peregrinatio Scholastica (Sloane 3150) f. 6, The draper said truth and he should cotten well enoughe.

1660 T. M. Walker’s Hist. Independency IV. 46 [The Parliament]
and their Masters of the Army could not cotton together.

1699 B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew (at cited word), They don’t cotton, they don’t agree well.

1881 R. C. Praed Policy & Passion I. x. 212 All I ask is that I may be able to cotton with the man she’s set her heart on.

(Hide quotations)

Thesaurus »

b. of things.

1567 T. Drant tr. Horace Arte of Poetrie sig. Avv, That first with midst, and middst with laste, Maye cotten, and agree.

1614 T. Adams Diuells Banket ii. 54 Our secure liues, and your seuere Lawes will neuer cotten.

1652 M. Nedham tr. J. Selden Of Dominion of Sea 163 These things do not cotten well.

1840 Lady C. M. C. Bury Hist. Flirt xviii, The vaulted roof of a cathedral..did not ‘cotton’ with lively ideas.
[/quote]
that it has little to do with cotton cloth and the US South.