Phrase Origin: More Than Carter's Got Pills

When I was younger, I remember my Grandma Betty saying the phrase “more than Carter’s got pills” which she used to reference to “a huge amount” of something. All these years, I presumed she was talking about Jimmy Carter, our 39th President. After all, he was the President from 1977 to 1981, and these were the years that I spent a lot of time with my grandma. I just thought that Jimmy Carter took a lot of pills.

Fast forward to this week. Jimmy Carter turned 100 years old, and it came up in dinner conversation with my husband. My husband knows a lot about political history, so I asked him if Jimmy had a known chronic medical condition during his presidency in which he took a lot of medication. First he looked at me like I had a third eye and then asked why I would know that. I told him how my grandma always said something like “more than Jimmy Carter’s got pills”.

He had no idea what I was talking about. Thinking I actually stumped him, and feeling proud of myself for doing so, I figured I better Google some facts to back up my claim. I had to eat humble pie.

Turns out, the “Carter” my Grandma was referring to wasn’t Jimmy Carter at all. Instead, she was talking about Carter’s Little Liver Pills, a popular medicine in the early to mid-1900s. Carter’s Little Liver Pills were advertised as a remedy for digestive issues like indigestion and sluggishness, and they were once so well-known that the phrase “more than Carter’s got pills” became a way to describe an overabundance of something.

Image Source: Wikipedia

Carter’s Little Liver Pills were first introduced by Samuel J. Carter in the 1860s, and for decades, the product was a household name. It became so popular that, at its height, Carter’s produced millions of pills, which is where the phrase originated. People started using it to reference anything in great quantity—because if there was one thing you could count on, it was that Carter had plenty of pills!

Interestingly, the company had to drop the word “liver” from the product’s name in 1951, after the Federal Trade Commission determined that the pills had no direct impact on liver function. So, they became simply “Carter’s Pills,” but by then, the original name and the phrase had already stuck in the public consciousness.

The phrase was so widespread that even Johnny Carson used it during his shows, further cementing it into popular culture. Carson’s quick wit and humor made references like these a hit with his audience, showcasing just how ingrained “Carter’s got pills” was in everyday language during that time.

This little revelation was both amusing and humbling. All these years, I had been attributing this phrase to Jimmy Carter, only to discover that my grandma’s old saying had nothing to do with politics or presidential health and everything to do with a marketing juggernaut from a bygone era!