# "Soft" drinks... "Hard" liquor?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 9, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004 "2011-01-09T18:52:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/1 "2011-01-09T18:52:38Z")
What’s the origin of using “soft” or “hard” for describing a liquid?
---
### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/2 "2011-01-09T18:56:05Z")
“Soft” contains no alcohol. “Hard” contains alcohol.
---
### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/3 "2011-01-09T18:58:40Z")
> [@Sunspace](#):
>
> “Soft” contains no alcohol. “Hard” contains alcohol.
I think the OP is not asking for a definition, but instead asking for the origin of using the terms in this manner.
---
### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2011, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/4 "2011-01-09T19:09:36Z")
Not sure of the origins but…
To me, ‘hard liquor’ means 80 proof or more. This distinguishes it from something like a 20 proof schnapps or 40 proof Kaluah. You may hear “Get a couple bottles of Pucker and something hard” echo down the dormitory hall.
You do hear ‘hard cider’ and ‘hard lemonade’ when referring to those drinks.
---
### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2011, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/5 "2011-01-09T19:18:02Z")
From [etymonline.com](http://etymonline.com):
> [@](#):
>
> Hard liquor is 1879, Amer.Eng. (hard cider is from 1789), and this probably led to hard drugs (1955).
Hard cider is fermented, alcoholic cider. That was an extremely popular drink in the colonies and early republic.
They don’t give an origin for soft drink, but it seems to come into use around 1900. It was certainly coined as an alternative to hard liquor, probably because of the growing prohibition movement. Non-alcoholic drinks had been marketed as such for hundreds of years but don’t appear to have had a collective name.
---
### Author:  [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2011, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/6 "2011-01-09T23:07:30Z")
> [@Ruby](#):
>
> What’s the origin of using “soft” or “hard” for describing a liquid?
Do we have someone here with access to the online OED?
---
### Author:  [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/7 "2011-01-10T00:42:03Z")
Not the online OED, but the regular old-fashioned books. “Hard” as it refers to liquor was used to mean “harsh or sharp to the taste” as early as 1581, but the “intoxicating, spiritous, ‘strong’” sense, surprisingly, dates only from 1879, when an article or notice appeared in the Boston _Times_ about someone “Before the court, for selling hard liquor, when he had only a licence for selling ale.”
As for soft, “of beverages, non-alcoholic, non-spiritous,” there is a citation from 1880, followed by a quote from 1894 “Each regiment had a ‘canteen’ of its own, where the men could buy . . . soft drinks, beer, pipes, etc.”
So it looks as if 1879 was rapidly followed by 1880.
---
### Author:  [@Ruby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruby)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/8 "2011-01-10T01:23:57Z")
It makes sense to me that people in the prohibition era would want a word to collectively describe non-alcoholic drinks.
Also, it’s an easy jump from hard = “sharp to the taste” to hard = “liquor”…have you ever had moonshine? I don’t think they had frou-frou drinks in the 1500’s.
Thanks everyone!
---
### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2011, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/9 "2011-01-10T02:14:18Z")
The online OED gives _hard_ in the alcoholic sense as “_colloq._ orig. \*U.S. \*”, and has the first cite from 1789 (a reference to hard cider). _Soft_, meaning non-alcoholic, comes a century later (first cite 1880) and is “\*orig. _dial._ and _U.S._”.
When I was growing up in Ireland in the 1960s and 70s, _soft_ meaning non-alcholic was commonplace, but _hard_ in the corresponding sense was not used, and would have been seen as an Americanism.
---
### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2011, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/10 "2011-01-10T02:43:20Z")
[Etymonline.com](http://Etymonline.com) uses the OED as its primary source for dates, although it also pulls in from several other references.
Since the OED is not publicly available, you can and should use [etymoline.com](http://etymoline.com) as a substitute. It’s worth bookmarking.
---
### Author:  [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2011, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/11 "2011-01-10T06:08:47Z")
> [@UDS](#):
>
> The online OED gives _hard_ in the alcoholic sense as “_colloq._ orig. \*U.S. \*”, and has the first cite from 1789 (a reference to hard cider). _Soft_, meaning non-alcoholic, comes a century later (first cite 1880) and is “\*orig. _dial._ and _U.S._”.
>
> When I was growing up in Ireland in the 1960s and 70s, _soft_ meaning non-alcholic was commonplace, but _hard_ in the corresponding sense was not used, and would have been seen as an Americanism.
I’m curious where the term mineral for soft drink came from.
---
### Author:  [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2011, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/12 "2011-01-10T06:22:32Z")
Where I grew up soft drink referred to a carbonated beverage such as root beer or ginger ale. Hard drink, well, that’s self-explanatory. From what I can tell this is a “regionalism”, native to New England, where soft drinks are still often called tonics. In other parts of the country they call these drinks other things, such a pop or just plain soda.
---
### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2011, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/13 "2011-01-10T07:19:39Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#):
>
> I’m curious where the term mineral for soft drink came from.
Short for “mineral water”, meaning water containing dissolved mineral salts. Originally this referred to mineral water occurring naturally, which was often consumed for therapeutic purposes. Natural mineral water from some places was bottled and distributed for consumption initially for health reasons but later for refreshment. Then the term came to be applied to a commercially produced to which the mineral salts were added, and later still by general extension to any efferevescent, flavoured or sugared water produced, bottled and marketed as a refreshment.
---
### Author:  [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2011, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/14 "2011-01-10T07:46:20Z")
> [@UDS](#):
>
> Short for “mineral water”, meaning water containing dissolved mineral salts. Originally this referred to mineral water occurring naturally, which was often consumed for therapeutic purposes. Natural mineral water from some places was bottled and distributed for consumption initially for health reasons but later for refreshment. Then the term came to be applied to a commercially produced to which the mineral salts were added, and later still by general extension to any efferevescent, flavoured or sugared water produced, bottled and marketed as a refreshment.
Sorry to extend hijack, was that term ever common outside Ireland? You still see it the odd time on newsagent signage.
---
### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2011, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/15 "2011-01-10T07:55:39Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#):
>
> Sorry to extend hijack, was that term ever common outside Ireland? You still see it the odd time on newsagent signage.
The OED doesn’t note it as being a particularly Irish phrase. It has plently of cites from Britain and North America. Most of these use the prhase to refer to natural mineral water, but there are some which seem to be references to effevescent soft drinks generally. The sense which embraces all effervescent soft drinks may have been more common in Ireland than elsewhere, but it certainly wasn’t uniquely Irish.
---
### Author:  [@john\_b\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/john_b_2)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2011, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soft-drinks-hard-liquor/567004/16 "2011-01-11T09:34:59Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#):
>
> Sorry to extend hijack, was that term ever common outside Ireland? You still see it the odd time on newsagent signage.
The term soft drinks is still used in parts of the United States. There are many grocery-variety stores that have signs on the door, including the refrigerated sections that read: soft drinks: cans. $1.00, bottle, $1.65 (or whatever). They do not refer to mineral water or any kind of bottle water. It’s drinks like Coke, Pepsi, Sprite and ginger ale they’re referring to.