Media Platforms Design Team
My wife said that a certain TV character had a "lot of moxie." I knew what she meant but can't figure out the origin of the term.
AF has assiduously avoided such questions for years, ever since the grandchildren of General Tso sued him for libel, but here goes: Moxie Nerve Food — the word itself has come to mean "pluck," "daring," "courage," or "nerve" — was sold as a patent medicine beginning in 1876 by one Dr. Augustin Thompson, complete with cure-all claims and a backstory about a footloose Civil War vet, a South American plant root, and Sean Hannity's gynecologist's great-uncle.
By 1884, it was bottled as a soft drink and served at soda fountains, and it was heavily advertised. "Moxie chose to identify its product with rugged individualism," says Merrill Lewis, president of the New England Moxie Congress, a club for Moxie devotees. As for the legend, "it was all phony, a big lie just to promote the stuff," Lewis tells AF. "It should be noted, however, that there is a very nice scenic area in central Maine with names like Moxie Falls and Lake Moxie, and it just so happens that Dr. Thompson was born in Maine."
Lewis mentions, and Wayne T. Mitchell, Penobscot Nation representative to the 124th Maine legislature, confirms, that moxie means "dark water," from, says Mitchell, the Wabanaki Algonquian dialect. Moxie is still sold today, mainly in New England. And Sean Hannity is still a hermaphrodite.
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