# What's the source of the expression/verb "cotton to" (eg "I don't cotton to that idea") **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 15, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-source-of-the-expression-verb-cotton-to-eg-i-dont-cotton-to-that-idea/663562 "2013-07-15T14:35:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-source-of-the-expression-verb-cotton-to-eg-i-dont-cotton-to-that-idea/663562/1 "2013-07-15T14:35:15Z")
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**. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-source-of-the-expression-verb-cotton-to-eg-i-dont-cotton-to-that-idea/663562/2 "2013-07-15T14:48:43Z")
[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. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-source-of-the-expression-verb-cotton-to-eg-i-dont-cotton-to-that-idea/663562/3 "2013-07-15T14:52:40Z")
[Wiki answers](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_origin_of_the_idiom_don't_cotton_to_that) > [@](#): > > This phrase dates from somewhere in the 16th Century. Originally, it was a textile term - to “cotton” or “cotton well” referred to the success of the fibers melding together to form cotton cloth. Around the 16th Century, the phrase began to be used to mean “to be successful,” or “to prosper” in reference to people and things. About the 19th Century, the phrase “to cotton to” began to see use, and meant “to be drawn to” or “to get along with.” > > If you do not “cotton to” something, then you don’t care for it. This phrase is particularly common in the South, where the cotton industry formed the basis for the economy for many years ---
**Author:** ![MrFloppy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@MrFloppy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrFloppy)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-source-of-the-expression-verb-cotton-to-eg-i-dont-cotton-to-that-idea/663562/4 "2013-07-15T14:53:47Z")
Annie has a better answer so I am completely deleting my lame attempt. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-source-of-the-expression-verb-cotton-to-eg-i-dont-cotton-to-that-idea/663562/5 "2013-07-15T15:29:05Z")
Michael Quinnon from World Wide Worlds has the authoritative answer. [Cotton on](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-cot1.htm) It’s complicated, but I’ll try to unravel it for you… > [@](#): > > By the middle of the sixteenth century the verb sense of cotton had become a figurative expression meaning to prosper or succeed. A writer in 1822 tried to explain it: “a metaphor, probably, from the finishing of cloth, which when it cottons, or rises to a regular nap, is nearly or quite complete.” > > By about 1600, to cotton together or cotton with a person meant you got on well together. It has plausibly been suggested it came from the use of mixtures of cotton and other fibres in clothing. A little later, cotton up meant to strike up a friendship. In the early 1800s, to cotton to somebody implied that you were drawn or attached to that person. It may be that the idea here is how well a thread of cotton sticks to the surface of cloth. Cotton to was taken to Australia and became common there: > > _“My word! Dick,” Jim says, “it’s a murder he and Aileen didn’t cotton to one another in the old days. She’d have been just the girl to have fancied all this sort of swell racket, with a silk gown and dressed up a bit.”_ > Robbery Under Arms, by Rolf Boldrewood, 1888. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-source-of-the-expression-verb-cotton-to-eg-i-dont-cotton-to-that-idea/663562/6 "2013-07-15T16:12:55Z")
Oh, now that is just all wrong, it is just a sloppy rendering of “caught on” ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-source-of-the-expression-verb-cotton-to-eg-i-dont-cotton-to-that-idea/663562/7 "2013-07-15T17:11:47Z")
**cotton** wrote he comes from a long line of cotton growers. I hope he stops by with some info. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2013, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-source-of-the-expression-verb-cotton-to-eg-i-dont-cotton-to-that-idea/663562/8 "2013-07-15T19:26:42Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-source-of-the-expression-verb-cotton-to-eg-i-dont-cotton-to-that-idea/663562/9 "2013-07-16T01:02:56Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > 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. > [@OED](#): > > Colloq. phr. to cotton on to : (a) to become attached to; to form a liking for; (b) to understand; to get to know about; also to cotton on , to ‘catch on’. > > 1907 H. Lawson in W. Murdoch & H. Drake-Brockman Austral. Short Stories (1951) 85, I s’pose the fact of the matter was that she didn’t cotton on to me, and wanted to let me down easy. > > 1922 D. H. Lawrence England, my England 106 Oh..I didn’t want to… Didn’t want to—didn’t cotton on, like. > > 1929 W. P. Ridge Affect. Regards 137, I was one of the few that didn’t cotton on to it. > > 1934 Concise Oxf. Dict. Add., Cotton on (to) (slang), understand. > > 1936 J. Tickell See how they Run i. 4, I don’t seem to cotton on to German somehow. > > 1940 ‘N. Shute’ Landfall 198 ‘How long have they been doing this?’ ‘God knows. We’ve only just cottoned on to it.’ > > 1959 Observer 8 Nov. 4/6, I can see how to put things over. I cotton on quick. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-source-of-the-expression-verb-cotton-to-eg-i-dont-cotton-to-that-idea/663562/10 "2013-07-16T01:20:27Z")
**“cotton to” (eg "I don’t cottot to that idea)** > [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > 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**. 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.