In the late nineteenth century, patent medicine makers printed postcard sized advertisements for their products and distributed them to druggists. Most of these so-called trade cards had a picture on one side, and a description of the product on the… Read More
The cask on a ship that held the day’s supply of water was known as a scuttled butt—a cask (butt) that had a hole bored in it (scuttled) for withdrawing water. Because sailors congregated around this nautical “water cooler,” the term “scuttlebutt” became navy slang for gossip and rumors.