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Bingo
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Why do they say 'doctors orders number nine'
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.During World War I, even medications - like most things military - were given a number. A Number Nine was, specifically, a laxative pill. The joking idea behind the phrase was that - whatever you had wrong with you - the doctor's first approach was likely to be to give you one of these! Bingo, or housey-housey as it was then generally called, also became popular and so the phrase transferred over to the bingo-caller's number routine.