I've got a question about the phrase "...laugh so hard that milk comes
out your nose." This phrase is a pretty common one, and it refers, of
course, to the unfortunate experience of laughing at the inopportune
moment where one happens to have a mouthful of liquid--in which case,
the liquid is violently ejected through one's nose. My question is,
why is it that the liquid is always "milk" in this expression, and not
water or juice or soda or gazpacho (yecch)?

I don't think I could reasonably expect someone to come up with an
actual "reason" why it's always milk, but I'd love to have some kind
of literary history of this expression to see how far back the notion
exists in literature. An acceptable answer would include two or three
authoritative early uses of the expression (or similar ones) in
history, a couple of web or print references, and maybe a timeline if
applicable.

Any philosophizing on why it's always milk would also be appreciated,
but I don't expect any hard and fast answers here.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 11 Sep 2006 14:41 PDT

For what it's worth, this is a good Google search for looking for the
phrase in question, and it's many variations:


[ "laugh so hard"  "milk   *  out * nose" ]


and with milk as the liquid, you get more than 18,000 hits:


://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD%2CGGLD%3A2003-43%2CGGLD%3Aen&q=%22laugh+so+hard%22++%22milk+++*++out+*+nose%22


Substitue anything else, though, and you're hard-pressed to get even 1,000.

Milk looks like the clear winner.  Now the question is....Why?!?!?!

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Clarification of Question by wazroth-ga on 11 Sep 2006 17:58 PDT

That's just it--one can snarf just about anything, but in literature
one is almost universally snarfing milk. Paflafa, your google search
just drives home my point. Interesting, too, to note that a number of
the results are referring to the very fact that the expression is
usually reserved for milk.

I'd love to see a couple of early references (with dates) to the
expression that I could verify on my own (by looking up in the library
or online through some respectable source), or some other information
on the history of the expression.

Thanks again.

In my experience, it isn't always milk. I've had the nasal
regurgitation problem with lemonade, root beer, iced tea, and other
non-dairy drinks. Once I almost drowned when I snorked Samuel Adams
Scotch Ale up my nose. Bleaah. Foamy.

Perhaps due to underdevelopment of the nasal cavity/sinuses when
younger and we are more likely to be drinking milk (even breast milk)
during that time period?

I'm with Pink, it can happen with any drink, and foamy beer is a bad
choice to have happen.  :8()
It depends on how you react to what the kind of people you know say
and what you're drinking.  Granted, Canadianhelper has a point, that
kids may be more likely than adults to be caught while swallowing and
not have the experience to cope with the situation as well as
practiced adults.
And then, adults are less likely to mention such an incident  - or
maybe they change the beverage, if they do.

>> And then, adults are less likely to mention such an incident  - or
maybe they change the beverage, if they do.

Or maybe they use silly pseudonyms such as 'pinkfreud' so that nobody
will be able to identify them.

Or 'Myoarin'.  All the others are just holding their noses and sputtering.

I believe it's milk because the description originated as something
that children observed in other children at a time in history when
children mostly drank milk.  I suspect it's baby boomer nostalgia.

The three times I witnessed this were all at lunch in junior high and
high school. The only available beverage was milk back then, soda
having been invented but too newfangled for the likes of
impressionable kids. We still had fish sticks every Friday, too;
despite being told by the Pope it was okay to have burgers, our city's
public school superintendent was taking no chances with the mortal
souls of his charges. And his brother was a fisherman.

Mostly I snarf whatever I'm drinking when I see something comical on the internet

I never drink milk while browsing

I'm with efn on this one. It first happened to me (and most everyone
I know) in grade school, when there were no cafeterias, but cartons
of milk were served to go with your bagged (or lunchboxed) lunch.

There were very few who turned down the free milk (choice of white
or chocolate!), and many, many instances of joking around that 
resulted in the proverbial situation.