Why do we clink glasses and say cheers?
Upvote:2
Snopes
According to Snopes both clinking glasses to ward off evil spirits, and to test for poison in the spirits, is false.
Many explanations have been advanced to explain our custom of clinking glasses when participating in toasts. One is that early Europeans felt the sound helped to drive off evil spirits. Another holds that by clanking the glasses into one another, wine could be sloshed from glass to glass, thereby serving as a proof the beverages had not been poisoned. Yet another claim asserts that the “clink” served as a symbolic acknowledgment of trust among imbibers who did not feel the need to sample each others’ drinks to prove them unadulterated.
Why do we clink glasses and say cheers?
Apparently the real reason has its roots in a benediction end of worship service tradition when everyone used to drink out of the same cup. To make up for the fact that everyone now drinks out of their own cup, we clink glasses to bring everyone together as if we were all drinking from the same "loving cup".
“Toasting,” our term for the pronouncement of benedictions followed by a swallowing of alcohol, is believed to have taken its name from a practice involving a shared drinking vessel. Floated in the “loving cup” passed among celebrants in Britain was a piece of (spiced) cooked bread that the host would consume along with the last few drops of liquid after the cup had made one round of the company. In modern times toasting has become a matter of imbibing from individual drinking vessels rather than from one shared flagon, so to compensate for the sense of unity lost in doing away with the sharing of the same cup we have evolved the practice of simultaneously drinking each from our own glass when a toast is made, thereby maintaining a communal connection to the kind words being spoken.
More post
- 📝 Did the 'founding fathers' of the United States see Oliver Cromwell as a role model?
- 📝 Aircraft identification
- 📝 What is the most historically prevalent reason of states dissolving, other than military activity?
- 📝 Can history shed any light on the "secret arts" of the Egyptian magicians who turned their staffs into serpents as claimed by Exodus 7:11-12?
- 📝 Were does Tifinagh come from?
- 📝 Did the Dutch carry out trials for collaboration with the Japanese in the Dutch East Indies?
- 📝 Since the inception of the United States, has the term "America" ever referred to something more than simply "the United States"?
- 📝 What is the difference between a typescript and manuscript?
- 📝 My Grandfather-Nationalist boarding schools in Nazi Germany
- 📝 Why did Thomas Hendricks win the majority of Horace Greeley's electoral votes in 1872?
- 📝 How do Tamahagane, Damascus, and Toledo Steel compare?
- 📝 Did international politics drive the creation of American political parties?
- 📝 Has an offensive ever succeeded without an advantage in artillery?
- 📝 What was President Jimmy Carter's role in the Iranian Revolution?
- 📝 Help identify ship, possibly from New York area
- 📝 Was the end date of Soviet-Japanese Border War the direct reason of starting Soviet invasion on Poland in 1939
- 📝 Provinces and Dioceses in the late roman empire contrasted with those of the church
- 📝 How did 2nd century Romans decide where to build Hadrian's wall?
- 📝 What factors contribute to the fact that only a handful of countries manufacture aircraft jet engines?
- 📝 Why are the buildings built in classical style in the first half of the 19th century in Russia so frequently yellow-and-white - coloured?
- 📝 Was democracy present in India before British colonization?
- 📝 How was Washington and Jefferson's relationship in Dec 1799?
- 📝 Published History of Harvard
- 📝 Are the Samaritans descendants of Israel's lost tribes, and so rightfully considered Israelites?
- 📝 Why did Xerxes need a canal across Mount Athos peninsula?
- 📝 Which 'march across the ice' had comparatively the most casualties?
- 📝 Why did Indira Gandhi lift the Emergency?
- 📝 How was King Henry VIII able to get syphilis?
- 📝 Why are gliders not used anymore in military operation?
- 📝 In the first half of 20th century, how was gold inspected for authenticity?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why do we clink glasses and say cheers?
- 📝 Why China was able to unify and not Europe?
- 📝 Why were old fortifications shaped like stars and not like circles?
- 📝 Why does the United States keep using "old" date representations and imperial system, while being in the minority?
- 📝 Why is the consensus that WW2 started on September 1, 1939 and not July 7, 1937?
- 📝 Why did North America economically prosper, and maintain stable government and South/Central America didn't?
- 📝 Why exactly did telegraphs have to use "STOP" instead of a period and "QUOTE" instead of a quotation mark? (Or special codes.)
- 📝 Why didn't France and the UK invade Germany in September 1939?
- 📝 Why Were Madagascar and New Zealand Discovered So Late?
- 📝 Why are the German and French languages so different?
- 📝 Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
- 📝 Why did LBJ, a staunch segregationist, champion and sign the 1964 Civil Rights Bill?
- 📝 Why didn't the US and USSR jam each other's early-warning radar?
- 📝 Why were Spain and Portugal neutral / not invaded in WWII?
- 📝 If the Union Jack joins the flag of England and Scotland, why does it have a different shade of blue than the Scottish flag?
- 📝 Why is AD in Latin and BC is in English?
- 📝 Why did Greeks and Romans dilute their wine?
- 📝 Why were helmets and other body armour not commonplace in the 1800s?
- 📝 When and why did having long hair become associated with women, and short hair with men?
- 📝 Why did Bayer lose aspirin and heroin trademarks under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles?
- 📝 Why were the drawings of Colossus burnt after WW2 and why was its very existence "of course" kept secret?
- 📝 When and why did garum disappear?
- 📝 Why did only the English adopt, evolve and use the longbow en masse in war?
- 📝 When and why did the use of the lifespans of royalty to limit clauses in contracts come about?
- 📝 Why weren't pickled fruits and vegetables part of (European) rations during the Age of Sail?
- 📝 Why didn't Japanese infantrymen and samurai use shields?
- 📝 Why did Italy abandon its alliance with Germany in WW1 and join the Allied side?
- 📝 Why were British ships not of the same quality as French and Spanish ships until the latter part of the 18th century?
- 📝 Why did Roosevelt and Churchill use voice-based telecommunication, instead of simpler text-based options which were easier to encrypt?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union close its borders and restrict travel abroad?