"....the British slang verb to dish, meaning ''destroy,'' first noted by the great lexicographer Francis Grose in his 1788 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue: ''He is completely dished up; he is totally ruined.'' When the conservative Tories stole the legislative clothes of the liberal Whigs by passing the radical reform bill of 1867, the Prime Minister, Lord Derby, delightedly chortled, ''Don't you see we have dished the Whigs?'

(from William Safire, The New York Times language column)

yours,

Peter T.