This is not in my book "Why you say it". What the heck is a kaboodle anyway? Kit is a whole assemblage. However, kaboodle falls into the category of nonsense words like "discombooberated".

Kaboodle sounds as though it may have Aussie roots. Any truth to this?

"Adversity is the whetstone of creativity"

While I can't be authoritative, I doubt very much if it's Aussie or any other foreign source. My grandparents used this expression, and I can't imagine that in their young days (1885-1915) there were any imports into the U.S. from Oz, linguistic or other. [OK, let me have it, all ye antipodean authorities.] "Kit" surely refers, as you note, to an assemblage or collection; my guess is that "caboodle" (as I have seen it spelled) is made up from "bundle".

For BOODLE : my SOED CD came up with :
"crowd, pack, a lot" as a noun,
also gave "money acquired illegally or improperly, proceeds of corruption."
It also said "give or take bribes" and finally noted a BOODLER as "a person who gives or takes bribes."
My sense of the word has always been that kit and kaboodle means what lawyers call "property both real and personal."
IOW everything you own, from toothpaste to tracts of land!
There are many more qualified than I who will jump in and be much more help, I'm sure -- but it's snowing and grey/gray and I was bored and there you were with a new post. A Board Contributor save my sanity once again ... so there!
wow
P.S. Boodle is such a good nonsense-sounding word. Sorta fills up the mouth well... say it out loud : Boodle-a-boodle-a-boo!

Per Dave Wilton:

http://www.wordorigins.org/wordork.htm#kit

I bookmarked it! Most likely I'll even find "nerd" and "dork" there!

It's snowing here too and I'm in-between drying coats of watercolor paint. Hey...this is a great place. I'm glad a friend referred me here!

"Adversity is the whetstone of creativity"

We use it in Zild (spelt "Caboodle"), but as Dave Wilton suggests it's gotta be American in origin. So no takers for an argument here, BYB.

However, I can tell you that the use of "kit" was in Zild in 1862. An American miner called Reilly found a lot of gold in the Molyneaux (Clutha) River and was reported in the Otago Witness being asked if the 62lb weight of gold he dumped on the bank counter in Dunedin was all he had. He apparently replied that what was there was "the whole kit".

Oddly enough, a new gold rush to just south of what is now Cromwell started the very same day ...

Reilly must have been a tough bird - he carried that 62lb of gold some 120 miles over very rough and in some cases non-existent tracks. I wish I could say he profited from it, but there is a report from about five years later which had him rowing a dinghy in Timaru harbour for a living when he drowned.

Chickie noted : I'm in-between drying coats of watercolor paint...

Do they still use hair dryers set on low to accelerate the drying?
wow

drying coats of watercolor paint...

It's now official, folks: aimless chat at AWAD is the alternative to watching paint dry

My English goddaughter, who is all of eight years old, made her own Christmas cards last year. She pasted bits and pieces on to them as a collage and painted little pictures. Her mum wondered what the odd smell emanating from the kitchen was, and found daughter dear merrily using the microwave to dry them ... it was set on "low" and she was nuking them in ten second bursts and then checking to see if they were dry.

And it worked! She still got a right royal bollocking, however.

Your Goddaughter is brilliant! It's a technique professional artists and photographers use to great effect. Tell her mom to encourage the little darlin'!
That thar' gal is a budding genius. Imagine figuring that out at only eight-years-old! Mercy!
wow

>Collage drying!

The pain might not be a problem but I sure wouldn't recommend the smell from the glue - sniff, sniff!

I hear that its not good for drying wet cats either. Or is that another urban legend, Anna?

is that another urban legend, Anna?

No.

http://www.urbanlegends.com/animals/lawyer_microwaved_pet.html

As an employee of a microwave-product company, I have on file hideous other examples of such enlightened human behaviour! Mail me if you want the animated version.

hideous other examples

maverick, don't come near me with that. I am dead serious.