This time of year, the word \u201ccheer\u201d seems to pop up a lot. The word is usually associated with happiness, enthusiasm and encouragement \u2014 think of carolers spreading holiday cheer, or the \u201ccheers\u201d you always hear at happy hour, or maybe football fans cheering on their team. And of course the new year is right around the corner \u2014 at the stroke of midnight, lots and lots of people will raise their glasses and say \u201ccheers\u201d and toast the new year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I wondered all this cheer came about\u2026.
\u201cCheers\u201d originated from the old French word chiere which meant \u201cface\u201d or \u201chead.\u201d But by the 18th century, it came to mean \u201cgladness,\u201d and was used as a way to express encouragement. And today, \u201cCheers,\u201d has become a symbolic way of toasting with the wish of good cheer and good health to those around us \u2014 it\u2019s kind of an expression of camaraderie.\u00a0
Almost all of us clink glasses with others before a drink. It seems like that has been practiced for centuries. Maybe we clink glasses because it\u2019s a coming together of friends and physically touching glasses makes it more of a communal celebration.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in Medieval times, glasses were clinked and peopled cheered loudly to ward off any demons or evil spirits. People also believed that it was good to clink glasses to spill some on the floor \u2014 leaving some for the bad spirits so they would leave you alone. A German tradition is to bang mugs of alcohol on the table and yell loudly to scare away ghosts or evil spirits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there\u2019s one school of thought that toasting was a way to avoid being poisoned. Back in the days when poisoning a foe\u2019s drink was a convenient way to kill him, it was believed that if glasses were filled to the brim and then clinked hard, a bit of alcohol from each glass would spill into the other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ancient civilizations had a way of honoring their gods during drinking ceremonies or feasts. I\u2019m not sure they said \u201ccheers,\u201d but toasting is thought to come from sacrificial libation in which a scared liquid (blood or wine) was offered to the gods in exchange for a wish, or a prayer for health. Both the Greeks and Romans had a tradition to leave an offering to the gods, including alcoholic beverages, during celebrations and often times after a death. In Greek mythology, the god of wine, Bacchus, was often toasted. A lot of times, even today, we raise our glasses upwards to the heavens like we\u2019re offering the gods a toast to the health of the living.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve been a lot of places, and just about all of them say \u201ccheers.\u201d In their own language, of course.\u00a0
Here\u2019s some I remember from over the years\u2026.
In Japanese \u2014 Kanpai
Spanish \u2014 Salud
German \u2014 Prost
French \u2014 Sante
\u5e72\u676f (Ganbei) in Chinese
Hungarian is Ege\u2019szse\u2019gedre
In Polish, it\u2019s Na zdrowie
And in Vietnam, we said \u201cdo\u201d (pronounced DZO)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During my extensive research on this subject, I discovered that cheer hasn\u2019t always been used so \u201ccheerily\u201d \u2014 but that\u2019s a subject for next time. I\u2019m glad it turned out the way it did \u2014 no matter what language, I think it\u2019s a nice custom.\u00a0
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This time of year, the word \u201ccheer\u201d seems to pop up a lot. The word is usually associated with happiness, enthusiasm and encouragement \u2014 think of carolers spreading holiday cheer, or the \u201ccheers\u201d you always hear at happy hour, or … Continue reading