Nancy Matos

Reader Question: “The sailors kept drinking for hours so that the table was covered with dead soldiers.”

Could you explain “dead soldier”?

My comments: Not exactly a nice term, “dead soldiers” doesn’t have anything to do with deceased members of the military piled on top of a table. Someone should come up with a less morbid reference for drinking a lot of bottles of alcohol, which is what it means.

A “dead soldier” can be an empty beer, wine or other type of alcohol bottle or can. In the rather amusing publication “Modern Drunkard Magazine” Frank Kelly Rich describes the meaning of dead soldier in the article “On the Cuff & Off the Table: The Origins and History of Drinking Words and Phrases” as:

“This slang for a vanquished bottle is attributed to U.S. doughboys about to be shipped off to fight the Kaiser. A soldier could be dead drunk, however, as early as 1599.”

(In case you’re wondering, “U.S. doughboys” was a name given to soldiers in World War I and “the Kaiser” represents Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.)

Check out Modern Drunkard Magazine’s funny website www.drunkard.com for more explanations for terms like dead soldiers and others related to drinking.

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