The development of such language in the business world makes for fascinating history. Off-licenses have a long history in Ireland and have been known by many different names. Is anyone well-acquainted with the history of the label off-license in Britain and Ireland? In my study of Irish pubs before the First World War, I have yet to see it. The most common phrase in Ireland at the end of the century was simply licensed grocer. Brad Kadel Department of History Luther College ----- Original Message ----- From: Robin Room <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2000 4:53 PM Subject: "package store" vs. "liquor store" > ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- > Sender: Alcohol and Temperance History Group <[log in to unmask]> > Poster: Robin Room <[log in to unmask]> > Subject: "package store" vs. "liquor store" > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- > > Part of William Safire's column on words in the New York Times, 1 > Oct. 2000: > > Package Deal > In the Left Coast [Los Angeles] convention speech introducing > himself to the > nation, Senator Joseph Lieberman said: "My dad lived in an > orphanage > when he was a child. He went to work in a bakery truck and then > owned > a package store in Stamford, Conn." > The week before, however, in a speech to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. > convention in Hartford, Lieberman used the phrase "liquor store". > Crawford Lincoln of Brimfield, Mass., asks, "Was this a gentler > locution to soften the image of his family's business for a > national > audience?" > I'd say yes, and thereby hangs a euphemism. A "package store" > is a store, not a bar, where liquor is sold by the bottle and not > by the drink and where the contents of the "package" is consumed > off > premises. > In 1880, Bradstreet's weekly reported active trade in "package > houses". In 1890, The London Daily News reported that "Judge > Foster > recently decided that liquor could only be sold in 'original > packages,' which is construed as meaning one or more bottles of > beer > or whisky. The merchants . . . are not allowed to sell beer or > whisky > by the glass." > Our earliest evidence for the phrase "package store", I am > informed by Joanne Despres at Merriam-Webster, "is an entry in the > 1918 Addenda to the New International Dictionary (originally > published > in 1909), where it is labeled 'cant, U.S."' (Cant means > "jargon," and business euphemisms fall into that category.) > Let's face it: what the seller is selling is not a package but > what > is contained in the package, which is liquor. Why the > squeamishness > about that word? After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, state > legislatures had the opportunity to license booze shops and > saloons > but did not want to upset the many "drys." That led to the > linguistic > prettification of saloons as "taverns" and of shops purveying the > mother's milk of John Barleycorn as "package stores". > Maybe the senator uses the terms interchangeably. But I have a > hunch that some politically sensitive soul remembered that "drys" > still exist and vote and changed the candidate for vice > president's > word from "liquor" to "package". It shows a > sandpapered-fingertip sensitivity to the shades of meaning of > words.