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Teetotal

  • 09-10-2009 10:07am
    #1
    deman
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,672 ✭✭✭


    For years I've been misspelling teetotal as "teatotal" as I always assumed it came form those whose strongest drink was tea.

    So why is teetotal spelt with tee and not tea?

    Here's why....
    The story attributes the word to Dicky Turner, a member of the society, who had a stammer, and in a speech said that nothing would do but "tee-tee-total abstinence".

    A more likely explanation is that teetotal is simply a reduplication of the 'T' in total (T-total). It is said that as early as 1827 in some Temperance Societies signing a 'T' after one's name signified one's pledge for total abstinence.[1] In England in the 1830s, when the word first entered the lexicon, it was also used in other contexts as an emphasized form of total. In this context, the word is still used, predominantly in the southern United States.

    The word could also be confused as a fusion of the words tea, a common non-alcoholic beverage, and total, albeit with the spelling changed slightly (Tea-total) — but this is not widely believed.

    But it doesn't make sense to me :(


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