Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Aug 01 - 08:51 PM

Saloon has bothered me too. Why are automobiles with two rows of seating called sedans in America and saloons in Britain? There are saloon cars on trains and halls called saloons. Saloon for drinking bar is supposed to be American, so maybe the term has crossed the water, dear Lady Penelope. How long have they had saloon bars in London?. In the States, a lounge may be a bar with soft seating (girls beware, frequented by the lounge lizard), or it may be a bar car on a train or a waiting-sitting room in an hotel. I have heard it applied to a settee or sofa or chesterfield or couch (take your pick).

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Aug 01 - 09:22 PM

And the American pint isn't the same as the imperial pint anyway. It's a bit smaller.

That's a good story about the P's and the Q's, but I suspect that the term goes back further than that. Though in the 1969 edition of Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, a version of that is one of the possibities given "More fancifully it is suggested that in public houses accounts were scored up for beer P for pints and Q for quarts, and a customer needed to mind his P's and Q's when the reckoning came."

Another suggestion in Brewer is that it comes from courtiers in Louis XIV time, who had to be carefull when bowing in case their wigs fell off - which meant minding their pieds (feet) and their queues (wigs).

But "most probably it derives from an admonition to children learning the alphabet to be careful to distinquish between the forms of p and q, or to printers' apprentices in handling and storing type."

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: GUEST,imbibulator
Date: 27 Aug 01 - 11:41 PM

When first I came to Melbourne town 40+ years ago the 'hotels' closed at 6pm and the six o clock swill was all the go. Beer was the universal drink, and real strong, but you could hardly taste the first few swallows because it was served so cold!!It was served in glasses (7 fluid ounces) and 'pots'(10 fl. ounces). You usually drank in 'schools' and each member was expected to 'shout', even if the school had a dozen members which it often did. Whosever shout it was had to carry multiple pots from the bar to where the school was congregated through a milling, sweating, thirsty mob of workers all trying to catch the barman's eye and get as much beer into themselves as possible before tackling the commuter trains and trams home, was a skill that denoted the seasoned drinker.

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Aug 01 - 06:18 AM

Besides the public and saloon bars, pubs would often have a Bottle And Jug Department giving a takeaway service, jugs being brought in to be filled. This is now called the Off Licence because it is only licenced for consumption off the premises.
Mines a large one. Cheers.
Keith

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Shields Folk
Date: 28 Aug 01 - 09:42 AM

Dichio, where is the evidence to support your theory that saloon bars were an American invention?

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 07:48 AM

Lounge for the ladies, bar for the men - that's the way it used to go. Or - bar for the men, living room of the landlords house for the women. My parents' house used to be a spirit grocers and had the hatch to serve the women in a separate room.
As for glasses and pints, I can still remember my aunt having to buy two glasses of Guinness rather than a pint, because it wasn't the done thing for women to drink pints and the barman wouldn't sell it to her.

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 08:52 AM

"meejum" is phonetic rendering of"medium". It was a (semi-official?) measure of beer between a "glass" (half pint) and a pint. I believe it was common in Dublin at one stage, but is now almost extinct. Reminds me that at one point in the price/volume ratio for beer, there was a fashion for selling it in half-litres because it kept the price below a pound! Not for long, though!

Regards

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: SlowAlan
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 10:20 AM

What about the "nipperkin" and the round bowl..?Give me a Darwin stubbie any day

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 02:08 PM

While we're on the subject, has anyone heard an expalnation of "Jack and Jill went up a hill.." that's relevant to this thread?

Regards

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 04:26 PM

In central Scotland around Glasgow where I was born, it used to be common to ask for "a hauf and a hauf pint" a hauf being a half, what you got was a half pint of beer, usually "heavy"[strong beer], and 1/5th of a gill of whisky. This I believe is known in some parts of the USA as a boilermaker. I don't know if it would go down well in Ireland but a friend of mine [Irish] used to call Guinness "lunatic soup" The other lovely habit in Ireland is to serve hot whiskey in the cold weather, this is really a hot toddy.

I just remembered about the weird rule in Scotland years ago that you had to be a "bona fide traveller" i.e. more than a given distance from your home address in order to get a drink in an hotel on Sundays.

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 05:59 PM

Shields Folk: Saloon American? The Oxford English Dictionary says USA and is my only authority for the word being American when applied to a drinking bar. I deliberately said supposed because their first reference to it appearing in print is 1884, New York Herald, which seems late to me. You may have evidence of its earlier occurrence. Martin Ryan, thanks for "Meejum." It is one of those usages that, once explained, makes one wonder why one hadn't guessed the meaning. Fibula M, your posting about lounge makes me wonder where its meaning in Canada and some of the States for a drinking room for both sexes comes from. Both OED and Webster's have the definition of a public sitting room but drink is not mentioned. Some of these usages may have come over with the emigrations in the 19th and early 20 century and not be originally American.

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 06:23 PM

I went to my western books after I posted, and it took only 5 minutes to find an older use of the word saloon for a drinking bar than is cited in the OED. This is in "The Vigilantes of Montana" by Dimsdale, published in 1866. It is entirely possible that the word came over with the Irish emigrants and the OED is wrong.

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: reynardyne
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 07:03 PM

Guest,

The rhyme 'Jack and Jill' refers to King Charles' (I) messing about with measurements of capacity (of which a 'jack' and a 'jill' were but two) for taxation reasons. I think Brendan McWilliams wrote on the subject in his Irish Times column a while ago. Anyone keep back issues? I think mine was used to mop up a mistake made by the dog.

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 07:30 PM

Jack and Gill were Norse. The rhyme is about the moon god Mani capturing two children, Hjuki and Bil, when they were drawing water from a well. The later Jack and Jill came from that after Gill had a sex change.

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Rich(bodhránai gan ciall)
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 07:36 PM

A cat is chasing a mouse around a pub for the better part of the day. Finally, the cat gets the upper hand, and corners the mouse. He puts a pint jar over top of the mouse and, knowing how crafty mouse is, puts a quart jar over top of that. Says the mouse, "You can't eat me this way. At least give me a sporting chance."
"Oh no! If I do that, you'll run into that hole in the wall."
"Sure, but I wouldn't do such a thing. That would hardly be fair!"
"You mean, if I take off thes jars, you promise not to run into that hole."
"Certainly"
The cat removes the jars, and the mouse runs into the hole.
"You told me, that if I let you out, You wouldn't run into that hole!!!"
Says the mouse," Sure, but you'd say anything with a couple of jars on!"



I heard thisfrom Brendan Begley.


Rich

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Aug 01 - 05:36 AM

The anonymous "Jack and Jill" query was from me! I'd read the Brendan McWIlliams article and was trying to check on it independently! I have great admiration for McWIlliams's erudition - but am sceptical of this one.

Regards

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Shields Folk
Date: 30 Aug 01 - 06:45 AM

One reference for the use of saloon I have found is for the Royal Music Saloon at the Weatsheaf Inn at the Cloth Market Newcastle. The Weatsheaf was managed by John Balmbra after 1858 and the advertisment the information comes from dates after that. Balmbras was made famous in the song the Blaydon races (in the DT).

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: forty two
Date: 30 Aug 01 - 12:19 PM

In Scotland there would still be a number of pubs around which have a jug bar. It is usually a small area screened off from the rest of the bar with its own door to the street. There is a small hatch in the panelling to the bar staff on the other side.

Jug bar? Where you send the child with the jug to be filled up with "heavy" for drinking at home. And while in the jug bar the child cannot see all the sinning that is going on in the main bar!!!

In Scotland too there are other terms for their beers: 60 shilling, 70 shilling, 80 shilling and very very occasionally 90 shilling. This refers to the ammount of tax levied (long long time ago) on a barrel of beer depending on its strength.

60 shilling or "light" is actually very dark in colour - almost like Guinness but light in alcohol content about 3.2% 70 shilling or "heavy" is the equivalent of an English bitter but not so bitter usually; about 3.9% alcolhol. 80 shilling is like an export or India Pale Ale - IPA is the only beer that was able to last the trip out to India to water the troops in days gone by! It would be about 4.5% alcohol And then 90 shilling. Very rare, a bit like a winter warmer. Strong and quite sweet at about 7% alcohol.

Wow! all this info on Scottish beer from and Irishman!

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Paddy Plastique
Date: 30 Aug 01 - 02:07 PM

Here in France, they have a crime against inebriated humanity called a 'galopin'. This is a beer served in a pastis glass - which is half the size of their 'demi' - itself actually a quarter of a litre. Irish logic has been used in the dishing out of their nicknames, I suspect. The 'galopin' is therefore less than a quarter of an Irish or British pint !!! A nation with a longstanding beer drinking tradition then, obviously (reminding me of another of their crimes - Kronenbourg). While last home in Ireland, there was a Guinness strike threatening and while at a certain singing club that will remain unnamed, consuming dozens of galopins, I heard an anecdote about the previous Guinness strike in the 70s - still scarring the psyches. One Guinness drinker, forced onto Murphys by the scarcity of G, insisted in referring to the Cork stuff as 'The Black Death'

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Paddy Plastique
Date: 30 Aug 01 - 02:12 PM

...and, er, jug bars.. In Dublin (and probably elsewhere in Ireland & the other island), 'jugs' are breasts.. Doesn't sound like the kind of bar the Ma'd let you spend too long in, if it was this sense :-)

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 30 Aug 01 - 02:42 PM

Jeez, I dunno! Whenever I post as GUEST my name seems to disappear from the "From" field. Or is ALzheimers....

Regards (Martin Ryan's giveaway)

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Fiolar
Date: 31 Aug 01 - 06:23 AM

Giok: Guinness was never called "lunatic soup" in Ireland. The term "lunatic soup" refers to "meths" or methylated spirits and was the last milepost on the road to the grave. A dye was added by the manafacturers but that was usually got rid of by straining it through a loaf of bread. Also the well know beverage "red biddy" was a mixture of red wine and meths. On another tack, I heard of one fellow who could only afford lemonade but in order to get high, managed to siphon some gas from the cooker into the bottle and drink that. And before you ask how was it that there a gas cooker, his poor wife was the main support of the home.

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 10:55 AM

As to rushing the growler, Michael Quinion's Worldwide Words weekly language e-letter had this to say today:

Q. There's an old drinking song that goes like this: "There was a
little man who had a little can, and he used to rush the growler.
He stuck his head in the barroom door, and he heard somebody
holler, 'No beer today! No beer today! You can't get beer on
Sunday. No beer today! No beer today! Just bring around the can on
Monday.'" I have long wondered what "rush the growler" means. I
suspect it may be a Prohibition reference, but I don't know what it
means. Can you help? [Mia Shinbrot]

A. I can help to some extent. To "rush the growler" (sometimes to
"roll the growler" and other forms) was to take a container to the
local bar to buy beer. The growler was the container, usually a tin
can. Brander Matthews wrote about it in Harper's Magazine in July
1893: "In New York a can brought in filled with beer at a bar-room
is called a "growler", and the act of sending this can from the
private house to the public-house and back is called "working the
growler"". The job of rushing the growler was often given to
children.

It's certainly older than the Prohibition era: the first reference
to it appeared in print around 1885. By 1900 it had started to be
used in newspapers and had clearly moved away from being slang.
However, James Greenough and George Kittredge wrote in Words and
Their Ways in English Speech in 1901 that, "A score of such
references might make the reader forget that this most
objectionable expression ever was slang, or had any offensive
associations". What offensive associations? A clue is in the
Atlantic Monthly for February 1899: "It sometimes seems unfortunate
to break down the second standard, which holds that people who
'rush the growler' are not worthy of charity, and that there is a
certain justice attained when they go to the poorhouse". The very
first recorded example, from the magazine Puck in May 1885,
reinforces this, "The old, old story. The happy home, loving
parents, the growler, the fall and ruin". So people who indulged in
"growler-rushing" were thought to be on the slippery slope towards
destitution and self-destruction.

You're waiting, of course, for me to tell you where "growler" came
from. The noise you hear is me shuffling my feet in embarrassment.
Nobody knows.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 11:18 AM

Growler- a vessel in which beer is fetched- U. S. slang. OED.
Another quote, from the NY Herald, 29 Jul. 1888- "The employment by hands in a number of factories, of boys and girls, under ten and thirteen years, to fetch beer for them, or in other words, to rush the growler."
No real help on origin.
H. L. Mencken, in "The American Language," regards the term as American.

Why do American seamen call a small iceberg a growler?

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 02:37 PM

In Gerrald Durrell's book Rosie Is My Relative (a true story) he mentions that workmen at the London Zoo brought small steel buckets to work and sent a few boys to the nearest pub to get them filled when lunch approached.

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jul 03 - 07:59 PM

Nice to see this one back again.

One expression that might confuse a visitor is when you ask for a pint, and the barman asks you "Do you want a jug?" Meaning not, do you want what you'd normally call a jug, but do yiou want your beer in a kind of shorter fatter glass with a handle, also known as a mug, as opposed to a straight glass, which doesn't have a handle.

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 27 Jul 03 - 12:46 AM

Thanks for reviving this thread Dave. I 'lost' Quinion's "Worldwide Words" yesterday, and couldn't remember the name or title. Now I'm safely bookmarked again!

New Zealand is as far as you can get from Ireland, but I guess a few comments about our drinking terminology won't go amiss. Like Melbourne, mentioned above, we had the "six o'clock swill" up to 1967 when 10 o'clock closing was introduced. I'll quote from CAV Smith's wonderful book From N to Z..

(With apologies to old Omar K.)

Come fill the cup before the call of "Time"
(Yes, fill it quick before the "shout" is mine);
The minute hand has but a little way
To go - and so - Time, Gentlemen Please - O Time!

EVERY visitor must be impressed by our Licensing laws which are as up to date, as effective, as illogical and are strictly adhered to as are the Gambling Laws. When 10 per cent. of the male population was fighting overseas for Liberty in 1914-18, the Prohibition Party carried Prohibition, the situation only being saved when the soldiers' votes were counted. After all, why fight for liberty in Europe and lose it in New Zealand? However, a most enlightened piece of legislation was passed, namely, the 6 o'clock closing of bars. This means that the pubs are open when everybody is at work and closed when they have time to drink. If a farmer really worked from dawn till dark he would be a teetotaller. However, the Law has its good points. A visitor, watching the gigantic scrum which takes place in pubs any night between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., can easily understand why New Zealand produces such fine forwards. ....

NZ rugby went steadily down hill after '67 - mind you the All Blacks beat the Wallabies the other day (Ducks from trans-Tasman ICBMs).

By the late 60s a few major breweries had the market and the hotels cornered. The number of liquor licences in the country was limited, and huge "booze barns" became the norm in new suburbs. The system of bulk beer supply left visitors from the US and UK mind-boggled.

Gone were the days of unloading a few kegs at the Pub. A truck with a huge stainless steel tank would sledge up outside, hook up a hose, and fill the vats in the Pub's cellar. Like Melbourne the beer was over-chilled (It still is - I get my pint zapped in the microwave, much to the bemusement of visitors).

Let's go into the Public Bar. Often this was 'waterproof' to shoulder height, with drains, so it could be hosed out after the "swill". There were standing height tables, and maybe a few tall stools - most folk drank standing up. Behind the long bar were a number of hose-pipes with a pistol-like 'tap' at the end. Barmen would race up and down the bar, squirting beer, much of which overflowed, and grabbing money. No need to ask what breed of brew you wanted - there was only one on tap. You could ask for a bottle or spirits, but that was frowned on during the "swill".

There was a choice of glass sizes, typically 5, 7, 10 and 12oz, with maybe pint handles or handless 'schooners'. You got your glass, but ordered the beer in a ....

Jug (or two) - this held a bit more than a quart (a gill?). That way you didn't have to fight your way to the bar too often. Jugs are still common in Public bars. Takeaway draught beer came in a ..

Jar (= Half-G, Flagon or Peter) - a reuseable, half-gallon, screw-top glass bottle. Now we have smaller disposable plastic 'Riggers'.

Like many places mentioned above, ladies were not allowed in Public Bars, in fact, for years the only females allowed behind the bar were members of the Publican's family. The lasses drank in the Lounge Bar (= Hosse Bar, Cat's Bar or Snug), which often just had the hatch servery mentioned above. Poncy pubs had waiter service. In many cases "unattached" males were only allowed in if part of a 'mixed' group.

Legal Sunday trading is a recent innovation - mainly in tourist areas. Mind you, 'after hours' and 'Sunday School' were par for the course in most Country Pubs...

Ahh... those were the days, when a bloke got half-sozzled in an hour. Parties started at 8pm, and everyone was legless by midnight.

Drinking became more civilised post 10pm closing. Most folk now sit down and you seldom see the punters a dozen deep at the bar. Beer arrives in stainless steel kegs, and most Pubs have four or more breeds 'on-tap' (now stationary UK-style 'pumps').

Aww... shucks - n'uff said - I'm thirsty

Slainte - Sam

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: GUEST,farcalled
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 11:49 AM

Most English pubs in urban areas had a "Jug and Bottle" This was a serving outlet, usually a hatch, reached from the street by a special door marked "Jug and Bottle" .

This is where you bought your ale and beer to drink at home. You could not drink in the Jug and Bottle. Beer, of course, was sold in the bottle but ale from the barrel had to be carried home in a jug you brought with you. Jugs were usually quart sized.

The advantage of the Jug and Bottle was that you didn't have to go into the pub.

Thus it could be used by underage children (although such sales were illegal from the beginning of the 20th century) and "ladies" who wouldn't have been seen dead in the tap room.

Subject: RE: Whiskey Jars, Guinness Pails - Irish Idioms?
From: Thompson
Date: 05 Sep 09 - 05:19 PM

A snug in Ireland is a small partitioned-off section of a bar with a window into the bar, where men can go to have a private drink and conversation; it was also often the place where women went for a drink together.

Pails of porter: it was the norm for someone (often a child) to be sent to fetch a pail - a billy-can containing a pint or a couple of pints - of porter (kind of like Guinness but a little weaker) for the women of the house in working-class city households.

A jar, as various people have said, is a drink. When people are in a phase of being enslaved to drink they're said to be 'on the jar'.