I thought of another old expression you don't hear very often, if at all, unless you watch black and white movies, "Take a powder". When I looked this up online, I noticed the web site suggests you see "keep your powder dry" as well. This second idiom means to be "ready for orders for action". It must have originated in the days when there was such a thing as musket fire.

I'm not sorry the expression "take a powder" has mostly passed out of use. It's the sort of thing you would expect George Raft to say to some dame.

Going even further back in time, those of wealth and status, and those in power wore powdered periwigs. The powder could be made of flour, corn starch, orris root, plaster of Paris, and scented with orange and/or lavender.

In my lifetime, there has been a shift away from commercially made baby powders containing talcum because of concern that it might cause cancer if inhaled. A powder containing corn starch is often recommended as a replacement.

My grandmother used tons of Evening In Paris talcum and matching cologne. She has since passed away, but I don't know that her prodigious use of scented talcum is to blame. She would be 111 years old this year.