The Kitchen Sink

Question

It's strange - I often found graphic joke references to the phrase in comics (hey, there even IS a comic company named Kitchen Sink Press :-) but never found it
printed nor could find out who coined the phrase
*"they threw with everything except the kitchen sink" (at least that's my reconstruction - forgive me,
English is not my first language...)
Any info?

Hauke Reddmann <:-EX8
Private email:(Email Removed)
For our chemistry workgroup,remove "math" from the address For spamming, remove anything else

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]It's strange - I often found graphic joke references to the phrase in comics (hey, there even IS a comic ... except the kitchen sink" (at least that's my reconstruction - forgive me, English is not my first language...) Any info?[/nq]
No info, except that the conventional phrase is "throw in* everything *but the kitchen sink".
Might be rooted in sales of houses, somehow.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]It's strange - I often found graphic joke references to the phrase in comics (hey, there even IS a comic ... except the kitchen sink" (at least that's my reconstruction - forgive me, English is not my first language...) Any info?[/nq]
The first record RHHDAS has for "everything but the kitchen sink" is
1944 an MGM animated cartoon, actually, "Screwy Squirrel," "He hit mewith everything but the kitchen sink!"
The second entry is dated 1948, someone talking about being under fire during WWII, "They chucked everything they'd got at us except, or including, the kitchen sink."
So it looks like it surfaced during the war, as did many other odd bits of slang. Any history prior to that time is unknown.

Best Donna Richoux

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]It's strange - I often found graphic joke references to ... forgive me, English is not my first language...) Any info?[/nq]
[nq:1]The first record RHHDAS has for "everything but the kitchen sink" is 1944 an MGM animated cartoon, actually, "Screwy ... surfaced during the war, as did many other odd bits of slang. Any history prior to that time is unknown.[/nq]
OED2 starts with the 1948 citation. ProQuest, as usual, provides earlier examples:
Arc INTERPRETS the MODE
Washington Post, Aug 10, 1929. p. 9
There just never was and it looks as if there never will be a purse to take the place of vanity boxes, which used to so-o-o-o-o nicely hold everything but the kitchen sink!

Field Seems Clear For North Carolina
Washington Post, Nov 11, 1935. p. 11
North Carolina's Tarheels carried all their eggs in one basket and if they can carry that basket through Duke's Blue Devils next Saturday with all the fruit intact they'll be able to claim everything but the kitchen sink when the prizes are passed out at the end of the season.
New Handbags Are Designed As Carryalls
Washington Post, Aug 11, 1936. p. X13
If you are the type of person who insists in carrying everything but the kitchen sink in your handbag (and what business woman doesn't?), you will rejoice at the grand new bags planned for your convenience.
Cluttered-Up Tables Will Mar Smartest Interior Decorations Washington Post, Jan 9, 1937. p. 12
Do you pile everything but the kitchen sink on your living room tables?
Freaks, Bear, Glamour Boy Listed on Arena Mat Card Washington Post, May 2, 1940. p. 20
Everything but the kitchen sink, to coin a phrase, has been rounded up by Promoter Joe Turner to lend enchantment to his weekly parade of groan artists tonight at his W street arena.

(The addition of the Washington Post to ProQuest's Historical Newspapers Database has been a tremendous boon for tracing AmE expressions, since the Post favored a more colloquial style and broader subject matter compared to the NY Times or Wall St Journal witness the quotes above on fashion, college football, decorating, and professional wrestling!)

It does seem that the "kitchen sink" expression was at least popularized in WWII, often to describe a heavy barrage. After the War, cartoonists used the expression for a visual gag, e.g.:
http://members.tripod.com/bugsbunnypage/scripts/trimmed.html Hare Trimmed (1953)
Directed by: I. Freleng
Featuring: Yosemite Sam

Bugs-as-Emma says, "You're cute. Let's elope." Cut to Sam standing at the bottom of a ladder propped against Emma's house. Bugs is throwing down furniture and everything else to a waiting Sam. "That dame's taking everything but the kitchen sink." Down comes the kitchen sink.
I believe the great Tex Avery may have been the first to use this gag, in his 1949 absurdist classic, "Bad Luck Blackie":

http://www.troy33.freeserve.co.uk/blb.htm
http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/detailed.cgi?film=3211&p=s

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]OED2 starts with the 1948 citation. ProQuest, as usual, provides earlier examples: Arc INTERPRETS the MODE Washington Post, Aug 10, 1929. p. 9[/nq]
I'd hope that the OED and other dictionaries are using these new indices to check on every word whose putative first citation is in the twentieth (or even nineteenth) century. It's truly amazing how easy it is to antedate the OED by decades with only a few newspapers indexed.

Evan Kirshenbaum + HP Laboratories >"Revolution" has many definitions.
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 >From the looks of this, I'd sayPalo Alto, CA 94304 >"going around in circles" comes

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]It's strange - I often found graphic joke references to the phrase in comics (hey, there even IS a comic ... with everything except the kitchen sink" (at least that's my reconstruction - forgive me, English is not my first language...)[/nq]
It's often used in conversation. "The took everything but the kitchen sink", or "They took everything, including the kitchen sink".

The kitchen sink is normally regarded as a fixture in a house, that is, part of the house. When you sell a house, you take your furniture, but you leave the fittings and fixtures, like the kitchen sink.
If you "took everything but the kitchen sink", you took everything you possessed. If you took everything including the kitchen sink, you were either taking more than you were entitled to, or (more likely) you were taking a lot of junk that you should have thrown away.

Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]The first record RHHDAS has for "everything but the kitchen sink" is 1944 an MGM animated cartoon, actually, "Screwy ... surfaced during the war, as did many other odd bits of slang. Any history prior to that time is unknown.[/nq]
Unknown. Donna Richoux has spoken. Must be so.

Charles Riggs
Email address: chriggs¦at¦eircom¦dot¦net

The Kitchen Sink

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