I have actually heard that people clink glasses while sharing a drink for the purpose of including all five senses with the experience. When you share a drink with someone, you TASTE the drink, you SMELL the drink’s fragrance, you SEE the drink, and you TOUCH the glass it’s in. The only sense that is not represented here is SOUND, and that’s why you clink glasses – to complete the inclusion of all five senses!!
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message board, Heather, glad to have you with us.
It’s helpful to others if, when you start a new thread, you provide a link to the Staff Report upon which you are commenting. Helps keep us all on the same page, so to speak. Here’s the link: Why do people clink their glasses together after a toast?
The article question asks why you clink after drinking a toast. I’ve always thought the clink came before the drinking.
Um, Irishman? The question and answer is why people clink their glasses “after a toast”, not “after drinking a toast.” The usual procedure is toast, clink, then drink. So the question is correctly phrased. I mean, you can’t drink toast, it’s dry and crumbly. Unless it’s rye toast, you can drink rye. You can even drink rye wryly.
As an interesting bit of trivia, among Hungarians it is considered rude to clink glasses after a toast. I’ve been told by some people that this applies only to beer, not to other drinks, and that clinking was practiced until about a hundred years ago, when it was stopped for political reasons. An acceptable alternative to clinking glasses here is to tap the bottom of the glass on the table.
psychonaut, I’m wracking my brain trying to think of a political reason to refrain from clinking one’s glass. I’m frankly drawing a blank. Is it a Hapsburg/Dual Monarchy thing?
Mightn’t it have to do with Colonel Klink, of HOGAN’S HEROES, and a desire to hide their Nazi past?
::: ducking :::
I have to admit, Dex, that was a real clinker.
But the real reason is Hungarian embarrassment over the Clink Clink Polka (written by a Hungarian, and later made famous, or infamous, by Spike Jones and the City Slickers).
Well, it was explained to me in Hungarian, which I don’t understand very well, so I didn’t want to repeat the story here for fear that I’d get it wrong. But since you asked, apparently there was an attempted revolution against the Hapsburg regime. The primary conspirators were found and executed, and those staging the execution commemorated the event with a toast. The Hungarians found it distasteful that the Hapsburg monarchists clinked their glasses over the dead bodies of their brethren, and resolved never to clink glasses again.
Note that I have no way of verifying whether or not this is the true origin of the glass-clinking prohibition.