P.O.S.H.? and Bar and Grill origins

Factual Questions
1

Sorry, I feel dumb asking these questions that I feel certain I’ve read before in this forum. But, the search function isn’t giving me any help. And, I’m not at home and don’t have access to all my nifty bookmarks.

I have a guy here who is really a bit snyde who says that “posh” is an acronym for Port Out Starboard Home for the shady cabins on cruiseships, which I can believe, but would rather see debunked just to piss this guy off. He also says that the phrase “bar and grill” is from the cage they put over the liquor bottles to lock them up, which I remember as a myth. I’ve been too busy with RL to store all this stuff in my forebrain and hope that someone with more forebrain storage, or with less demands upon their forebrain storage, can dredge up the facts for me. Cites that I can reproduce would be wonderful.

I haven’t committed myself to saying I believe or disbelieve him because it would gall me to no end for him to be right and me wrong. He’s one of these guys who asks obscure questions, not because he wants to know the answer, but because he wants to stump you and then show off his superior knowledge. Arrgh. I particularly do not want him to ever become aware of SD. If the only good cite we can come up with is Cecil, I will gloat quietly in my superior knowledge, but will stay quiet so as not to betray us.

Thanks for your efforts,
Vile

2

“Posh” is correctly explained. I remember learning that in school, too.

3

Paraphrasing from the introduction of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th edition) Page 27a: Many letters are received from people claiming the posh is an acronym for “port out starboard home.” While the explanation is well known, the evidence to support it does not exist. In fact the evidence seems to indicate that it is not correct. The first usage of the word is in 1918 in a usage unrelated to shipping. The first mention of the acronym is in 1935.

As far as Bar and Grill, my guess is that the Bar part comes from the railing along the counter on which the drinks are served. The Grill part is from the fact that they serve food cooked on a grill.

Haj

4

Our very own Cecil has mentioned this as wrong:

What’s the origin of the “F” word?

The Word Detective© has this to say about posh and posh a second time and posh, once again.

5

Oh. And *hajario is correct. Saloons came to be called bars because of the footrest. When big-city bars began preparing burgers (instead of just cold-cuts), they added “and grill” to indicate their broader service.

6

I stand corrected. In my defense, I received my education in the Netherlands, not England or the US. :wink:

Thanks, tomndebb.

7

tomndebb What is your source for the footrest being the origin of the term bar? And my limited sources at home tell me the term bar came before saloon. If I remember, you have access to OED.

8

Dictionary of Word Origins says that “bar” in its original meaning of “rail” or “barrier” was applied to mean “counter at which drink is served” in the 16th century, which implies (but doesn’t state definitively) that the meaning is derived from either the railing on the counter or from the counter as a barrier.

Also, saloon entered the English language in the 18th century (same source).

9

Yeah. I was too hasty relying on memory for bar. It refers, not to the foot-rest, but to the counter. (Interestingly, the OED seems to have missed bar as meaning tavern or public house. There are numerous citations to bar-room and similar combinations, several references to the bar of a hotel or other accomodation, but no citations (even in the 1986 update that is my most recent copy) to bar as an establishment of its own.)

While bar, meaning the place where one drinks, does go back to 1598, the reference is to the physical counter on which the drinks were served. The earliest reference to a bar as a location is an 1857 reference to a bar-window (a window in a liquor-serving establishment).

Someone with a recent OED will have to tell us whether they have corrected that omission.

Despite having gotten the origin of bar wrong, I stand by my explanation of bar and grill.

10

When you go back several hundred years, the presence of a “counter-top” of any sort at all would be quite a boon. After the grueling toil that most peasants endured, to lean against something was pure bliss. Having a place to rest that precious mug of ale was a real convenience too, especially after downing a couple. So, in its day, the term “bar” may have had quite a pull with the drinking public in general. All of this is ancillary when you consider the strong indications that all of this derives from French.

Let’s pull out the dry-as-a-hay-sandwich:

ORIGINS

“A Short Entymological Dictionary of Modern English”

By: Eric Partridge
1983 Edition

Greenwich House
Crown Publishers
New York

No direct mention of any saloon oriented reference for the word “bar”! The closest, is the one that proves my own theory (and it is mine…), namely;

The link between our modern word “barrier” and the French ballet term for an excercise rail or barre. All of this derives from the extensive listings that conjur up the legal aspects of the word “bar”. Refering to an area in a court where students sat so that they could witness the machinations of the court and be handy to the barristers if they were needed to cite some fact or run an errand.

In a similar way that arguers (and most especially spectators) in court do not have free approach to the judge, similarly a barkeep (think of the word carefully) would like to limit any customer access to the potables being vended. In a perfect versimilitude of the legal court, so does the saloonkeeper “bar” his customers from free access to the taps, spigots and bottles.

[sidebar]

Look up the word tavern and you will see it is one of the most ancient terms going all of the way back to the term tabernacle (refering to a horizontal wooden beam or altar) that more ignomiously, would someday see service as a bar.

[/sidebar]

So, however popular the original thought of resting yourself on a bar as you drank, be sure that it was the ledger’s bottom line that secured the term “bar” with innkeepers throughout history. Taverns without sufficient separation of the goods and patrons quickly went broke, to be sure.

11

Note the last clause of definition 28a:

While this includes the idea of bar=drinking establishment, it’s a rather backhanded way of doing so. This is probably due to that meaning being more of an Americanism, especially at the time the OED was originally written.

The main problem with the OED is that much of it is still what was originally written by Murray over 100 years ago. Nothing against Murray; he did a brilliant job. But it now needs a major overhaul. I understand that overhaul is underway, but I don’t know when it’ll be published.

12

The definition in the OED2 is identical to the one on the OED. “The apartment containing it” is not exactly how I would describe or identify the typical American bar as a complete place of business.

13

No one is refuting or standing behind tomndebb on how the ‘grill’ was added to ‘bar and grill’?

I am so pleased to find that my aquaintance is wrong about posh. What a lovely happenstance.

Thanks tomndebb for reminding me about the word detective, too bad they have not dealt with ‘bar and grill’ as yet.

14

[guilt to reply re: bar and grille] I support tom about the phrase. I will add that grill room appears as a term in 1883 according to Webster’s. I would love to know the exact work and phrase from which it came. It might shed light on whether it was a place that served something more than cold sandwiches.

I doubt that tom was literal in saying that it meant they added burgers to their repertoire. I would guess that the exact phrase-bar and grill(e) in the US did not appear before the teens or twenties. But these things are mysterious. They have a way of biting you in the ass, just when you think you have a handle on them.
[/guilt to reply]

15

I think “bar” was actually named for the brass bar where you put your feet. The purpose of this was to let you stand longer (try it – if you keep one foot elevated, you don’t get tired as quickly than if you keep both feet at the same level). I also believe that the legal term “bar” (as in “member of the bar”) also originates from some sort of barrier. The older term for a bar was a tavern, so it seems likely that the metal bar became a description of the place where the drinks were sold, and that became a description of the establishment.

“Grill” seems likely to come from grilling food.

16

Sorry, Chuck, but that was the exact error of memory for which I was corrected, above. Going back to the sixteenth century, the word bar had come to mean something akin to a room divider across which food and drink was served. See dtilque’s quote from the OED2. The first supporting citation to that usage is 1598, rather earlier than the installation of a brass tube across the foot of such a piece of furniture.

17

(OTOH, Chuck, your theory regarding the legal bar, (barristers, etc.) is dead on. That bar, dating to the fifteenth century can still be seen in American court rooms as the little fence that separates the audience from the judge, jury, lawyers, and defendant.)

18

I would guess that the explosion of bar and grill establishments is because many states allow the service of alcohol in the presence of minors if there is food being served as well. “Bar and Grill” style restaurants are simply advertising that children might be allowed.

My 2¢