Why are restaurant bills called 'checks'?

[Kenm]

I’m Canadian, and here it’s overwhelmingly “bill.”

When in the States, I ask for the check so the server won’t point and laugh, and possibly poke me with a stick.

[JKellyMap]

Thanks, Harpo. So, the underlying idea is “signing” for something. This happened to adapt itself well to US restaurant “check” = “check mark,” and more directly with the even more recent signing credit card slips in restaurants worldwide.

[TriPolar]

Obviously it’s called a check because it’s written on Guest Check.

[Bones_Daley]

@Exapno_Mapcase

In the olden days, 19th century style, only the fairly well-to-do could afford to have dinners of any kind. Poor people ate at home or lived in boardinghouses that served meals. Therefore, anyone rich enough to eat out was rich enough to be trustworthy. And rich enough not to have to be bothered by pulling out money and counting it at the table or, worse, squabbling about who ordered what and splitting the bill, indicating a lack of wealth. The payee would be presented with a slip for the total of the meal, which was signed with a flourish with a gaudy fountain pen. Then at the end of the month the restaurant would send over a bill to be paid, usually by check, just like any other service.

A comforting thought, but I question whether American restaurateurs were ever quite as deferential and trusting as you portray them … maybe in 19th century London this might have been common practice , but in New York ??? … I doubt it.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

@Bones_Daley

A comforting thought, but I question whether American restaurateurs were ever quite as deferential and trusting as you portray them … maybe in 19th century London this might have been common practice , but in New York ??? … I doubt it.

I bow to your awesome knowledge of history.

Wait, no I don’t. But I do comfort myself in knowing more about history than you do.

[Siam_Sam]

The Thais cover all bases by using the English-language term “check-bill.” Of course, since Thai syllables don’t end with the L sound, they pronounce it “check-bin” when calling for it.

[Bones_Daley]

@Exapno_Mapcase

But I do comfort myself in knowing more about history than you do.

I wouldn’t dream of questioning your superior knowledge of history …I was expressing dubiety, not disbelief.

I assume your superior knowledge will enable you to furnish a cite to a source which verifies that forwarding the bill to a customer’s address was common practice in 19th century American restaurants ?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

It’s a hard thing to search for, since all the terms are used more elsewhere. It’s something you gather from a lot of reading as a side comment. However, a trip to Google Books tossed up a few early references.

The Saturday Evening Post, Volume 191, Issue 1

"Here’s a bill from Brimmer’s that I didn’t like to pay myself. I told them you never run bills at the restaurant sir, but they said it was for dinner with a lady the day you were hurt and you’d O.K. it. "…
Richard absent-mindedly detached the check and took up a pen to sign it.

New York Court of Appeals. Records and Briefs.
By New York (State). Court of Appeals. p. 761.

Our account with Stevens was a bar account. We would go up and get a drink there, the same as we do at a restaurant - sign a check for the bartender. Stevens would get his money the same as you pay your hotel bill at the end of the week. The process was exactly the same as Stevens was conducting business; we would eat and drink, and give a tab to a waiter or bartender, which would be returned at the end of the week, and the account settled.

[Ignatz]

In southeast US, it’s often called the “ticket”.

[Bob_X]

@moriah

WORD HISTORY:
The words check, chess, and shah are all related. Shah, as one might think, is a borrowing into English of the Persian title for the monarch of that country. The Persian word shh was also a term used in chess, a game played in Persia long before it was introduced to Europe. One said shh as a warning when the opponent’s king was under attack. The Persian word in this sense, after passing through Arabic, probably Old Spanish, and then Old French, came into Middle English as chek about seven hundred years ago. Chess itself comes from a plural form of the Old French word that gave us the word check. Checkmate, the next stage after check, goes back to the Arabic phrase shh mt, meaning “the king is dead.” Through a complex development having to do with senses that evolved from the notion of checking the king, check came to mean something used to ensure accuracy or authenticity. One such means was a counterfoil, a part of a check, for example, retained by the issuer as documentation of a transaction. Check first meant “counterfoil” and then came to mean anything, such as a bill or bank draft, with a counterfoilor eventually even without one.

You are missing a huge part of the story. Calculations before the adoption of the Arabic numeral system were done in Europe, not with Roman numerals on paper, but with counter tokens on checkerboards: there would be a ones column, tens column, etc. each with slots one to nine (no “zero” box, you would just take the counter off) and typically these slots would alternate white and black for visual clarity, so the counter table would be called a “checker” board after the similar appearance of the chessboard. The “Treasury Department” in the UK is still called the “Exchequer” for this reason, and a “check” originally referred to any kind of monetary calculation.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Nitpick: the UK Treasury department is officially known as Her Majesty’s Treasury. Exchequer is used informally, only. The head of the department is still formally the Chancellor of the Exchequer, though.

[Lukeinva]

In French you would ask for l’addition.

[samclem]

@Bob_X

You are missing a huge part of the story. Calculations before the adoption of the Arabic numeral system were done in Europe, not with Roman numerals on paper, but with counter tokens on checkerboards: there would be a ones column, tens column, etc. each with slots one to nine (no “zero” box, you would just take the counter off) and typically these slots would alternate white and black for visual clarity, so the counter table would be called a “checker” board after the similar appearance of the chessboard. The “Treasury Department” in the UK is still called the “Exchequer” for this reason, and a “check” originally referred to any kind of monetary calculation.

I’d dearly love to see a cite for all that.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Here’s a cite for the origin of Exchequer. I don’t think he’s right about the jump to “check”, though.