Bizarre But True! The expression “going cold turkey” didn’t start with addiction. It started with getting cheated on at cards in 1910…
Canadian poet Robert W. Service wrote in The Trail of ’98: “I knew they’d handed me out ‘cold turkey'”—meaning he’d been swindled. Zero connection to drugs, withdrawal, or quitting anything.
The addiction meaning didn’t appear until 1921. A full decade later.
The Phrase Had Multiple Personalities
During the 1920s, “cold turkey” was simultaneously criminal slang for pleading guilty in court.
Again, completely unrelated to addiction. And totally forgotten and unused today. The phrase bounced between contexts like it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be when it grew up.
The Turkey-Skin Theory Is Probably Backwards
Everyone knows the popular explanation: withdrawal symptoms can make your skin pale, clammy and covered in goosebumps – resembling a plucked turkey pulled from the fridge.
And the medical reality checks out. During opioid withdrawal, blood redirects to internal organs, leaving skin genuinely looking like refrigerated poultry flesh. Documented symptomatology, not metaphor.
But here’s the problem…
The phrase existed for over a decade before anyone connected it to addiction or physical symptoms. The turkey-skin explanation is likely retrospective folk etymology – a story we invented later to make sense of a phrase that already existed.
It Meant Brutal Honesty First
“Talk turkey” appeared in 1824, meaning to speak pleasantly. By 1914, “talk cold turkey” meant the opposite – speaking with unflinching directness. Calling a spade a spade without softening the blow. Then it transformed.
John Lennon Sealed The Deal…
In 1969, the Plastic Ono Band released “Cold Turkey,” documenting John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s heroin withdrawal.
The song’s raw depiction cemented the phrase in popular consciousness as shorthand for abrupt, agonising cessation. Meanwhile, the parallel expression “kick the habit” comes from literal leg spasms during opioid withdrawal. Another addiction phrase rooted in the body’s violent revolt against sudden abstinence.
So, the question is, what are you going cold turkey on – a dodgy card game, talking nasty or quitting something heavy…?
Want More Weird Phrases…?
Check out these books about the world’s strangest phrases and where they actually came from…
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Like many people, you’ve probably used idioms or phrases like these without giving them a second thought. But if you were to take a moment to step back and learn about them you’ll be pleasantly surprised to discover the mesmerizing and sometimes outright bizarre origins to these fun sayings!
In Why Do We Say That, we have curated 101 of the most regularly used idioms, proverbs, turns of phrases, and colloquial terms that have the most fascinating backstories. For each phrase, we explain how it was coined, how its use evolved through the ages, and how it gained its contemporary use.
Behind the Curtain of Common Sayings pulls back the veil on the wild, hilarious, and sometimes downright bizarre origins of the expressions we use every day. From ancient mishaps to medieval mischief, you will discover the strange history behind the words that roll off our tongues without a second thought.
From the Achilles heel to crying wolf, this anthology takes in phrases from across the entire history of our language, while encompassing topics such as literature, mythology, sports, games, folklore, and much, much more.
Discover the meaning, wisdom, humor, and history behind the sayings we use every day. This collection brings together one thousand of the most familiar, useful, and fascinating expressions from cultures around the world. Each saying includes a clear meaning and an accessible origin, making it easy to understand where our favorite phrases come from and why we use them. Organized into themed chapters covering wisdom, love, friendship, courage, humor, faith, work, ambition, and global sayings, this book is designed for quick browsing or deep reading.
