Scofflaw? I'll drink to that!

In 1923, a national contest kicked off in Boston to find a new word. The definition was in place, and a $200 prize was announced once someone invented a word that would embody this definition. The definition: “a person who drinks illegally”. At the time, this meant pretty much everyone in the United States (and much of Canada), since Prohibition had been in place since 1919. The contest and its prize was sponsored by Delcevare King, a banker and an enthusiastic supporter of Prohibition.

The contest was announced in newspapers across the country, but it was the Boston Globe that found the winners. There were two winners, in fact: Globe readers Henry Irving Dale and Kate L. Butler, who independently hit upon scofflaw to inhabit this definition. Since both came up with it, Mr. King decided it was fair that they split the prize money, giving $100 to each of them. Theirs were only two of about 25,000 entries received.

The term caught on, and enjoyed popular currency for as long as Prohibition was in effect. The term was adopted by supporters of Prohibition, and was used to mean exactly what it was originally intended to mean: anyone who drinks illegally, and thus flouts Prohibition. It took on another meaning in Harry’s New York Bar, a celebrated spot in Paris. A bartender named Jock invented a cocktail called the scofflaw in January 1924, reacting quickly to the American neologism. In Paris, of course, you could serve and drink cocktails legally, so while this was certainly scoffing, of a fashion, it wasn’t breaking any laws. (The cocktail, if you’re interested, is made of whisky, dry vermouth, lemon juice, grenadine, and orange bitters.)

Harry’s New York Bar at 5 Rue Daunou, Paris—in operation for 106 years and counting.

Harry’s New York Bar offered the night life that was getting harder and harder to find in the United States. (Harder to find legally, anyway.) Not only did it sell liquor, it boasted that it never closed, and indeed it didn’t. If you wanted to go somewhere for a drink at 4:00 AM, they’d be happy to take your business. You could usually find live music there, too, at all hours of the day. The America-themed decor promised a beacon of America’s banned drinking culture. America was known for cocktails, which had long been popular on the west side of the Atlantic, but hadn’t yet really caught on in Europe. When Harry’s New York Bar opened on Thanksgiving Day 1911, it ventured to promote the cocktail in Europe, offering them as its specialty from day one. Harry’s is still open today, but it has long given up its 24/7 hours of operation. Though it promises all the forbidden vices you might want, even Harry’s had to bend to French law, and stopped selling the strong, often hallucinogenic liquor absinthe when the French government outlawed it in 1915.

Prohibition continued in the United States until 1933. Though the outlawing of alcohol did decrease drinking and increase labor productivity considerably, it also led to a growth in crime and alcohol-related deaths, and is generally considered a failure today. 1933 was high time to repeal Prohibition, anyway. The Great Depression was in its fourth year, suffering from the Hoover administration’s austerity policies, and struggling with 24% unemployment nationwide. A lot of people really could have used a drink at that time.

Bar patrons in 1933 celebrate the repeal of the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution, which banned alcohol in all 48 states.

Now that alcohol was legal again, the word scofflaw fell out of use. No one needed it anymore! Later on, the word enjoyed a revival. It was rediscovered in the 1950s, and repurposed to mean anyone who voluntarily flouted any law that was difficult to enforce. It’s more often used to refer to fare-jumpers on mass transit, or speeders on highways—or, you could argue, underage drinkers.

How the Lemon was Invented

Lemons How do you make a lemon? Silly question, isn’t it? You just take the seeds out of one and plant them, and wait for the tree to come up, right? That’s true, but it hasn’t always been that easy. Lemons today are a widely cultivated citrus fruit, with a flavor used in cuisines of countries where no lemon tree would ever grow. You might think that it was just a matter of ancient peoples finding the trees, enjoying their fruit and growing more of them, but that’s not true. The lemon is a human invention that’s maybe only a few thousand years old. The first lemons came from East Asia, possibly southern China or Burma. (These days, some prefer to refer to Burma as Myanmar . I’ll try to stay out of that controversy here and stick to fruit.) The exact date of the lemon’s first cultivation is not known, but scientists figure it’s been around for more than 4,000 years. The lemon is a cross breed of several fruits. One f...

Origins of the Word Hoser, eh?

Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas as cultural icons Bob and Doug McKenzie These days we often hear Canadians referred to as “Hosers”. It’s a strange word, and it sounds a little insulting, but it’s sometimes used more with affection than malice. Any such word is difficult to use correctly, especially if you don’t belong to the group the word describes. I can’t say I feel comfortable throwing the word around, myself, but I can offer a little information about it that might shed some light on what it means. First off: is it an insult? Yes… and no. The word hoser can be used as an insult or as a term of endearment; the variation hosehead , is certainly an insult. It’s a mild insult, meaning something like jerk or idiot or loser . Its origin is unclear, and there are several debatable etymologies of the word. One claims that it comes from the days before the zamboni was invented, when the losing team of an outdoor ice hockey game...

Haberdashers and Milliners

The haberdashery is something you don’t see anymore. It used to be a common sight in Western countries, when it was expected for a man to wear a hat when he left the house. There was enough of a demand for them that they remained a staple in American shopping districts until the 1960s, when fashions began to change. But you could at one time make a good living at it; it’s what Harry Truman did before he entered politics. Some say that it was another president, Jack Kennedy, who was partly responsible for hats going out of fashion in America, since he seldom wore them. (And with a head of hair that good, why would he?) Of course, there’s no way to measure this, but the disappearance of hats from men’s (and women’s) heads seems to coincide with the Kennedy administration (though I remember my father and other men wearing hats to work until the early 1980s). A ladies’ hat shop was called a milliner’s, and those have also largely vanished....

Search This Blog