The unsettling origin of ‘drink the Kool-Aid’
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Jargon haunts our offices. It skulks through cubicles, materializes at water coolers without warning, and makes its bone-chilling presence known at almost every meeting. And now it appears one of the most common buzz phrases has rather macabre origins. Curious of where the catchphrase “drink the Kool-Aid” originated, the magazine mental_floss dug through some history books to find that the popular expression dates back to the grisly mass suicide of the “Jonestown Massacre” in 1978. And get this: It’s not even branded correctly. According to reports, members of the Jonestown cult drank a poisonous mixture of Flav-R-Aid. However, the Kool-Aid name was more widely known.
RELATED: Put that jargon to good use—play ‘Word Quest’ at your next meeting
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