He's toast.

[FredPuli43]

Where does the expression 'he's toast' come from? Is it recent? Toast is edible, though it is but bread heated and browned; it has its uses, so what is the idea behind the expression?

[factor-fiction]

brown bread= dead?

[Hopkirk]

I see it as meaning burnt to a crisp, so no use any more.

[Kiki-frog]

I agree with Hopkirk. I think it's only been in use for the last ten years or so

[tonyav]

Sounds like an American import to me.

[heathfield]

From the New York Times Magazine... ''Hey, dude. You're toast, man'' was a passage in The St. Petersburg Times of Oct. 1, 1987, the earliest citation the Oxford English Dictionary research staff has of this usage. ''Actually, the trendiest way of saying someone is finished is to say 'He's toast,' '' wrote the columnist George Will the following year. ''The women in Bush's entourage also are turn-you-to-toast toughies.''
"It means burned, scorched, wiped out, demolished."

[AlwaysConfused]

agree with factor30, brown bread, dead

[jno]

I'd sooner be on a roll

[chelle7272]

Yes I thought it was brown bread / dead as well

[jno]

invented by Bill Murray in Ghostbusters

http://www.grammarpho...og/2011/05/toast.html

[MarkRae]

It's an Americanism, so highly unlikely to be rhyming slang. Toasted = cremated.

[Wharton]

I know someone from Towcester.

[chelle7272]

Jno I thought that had been disproved since

[jno]

how disproved? He didn't say it, or someone else said it earlier?

[footieshorts]

If the OED has a reference to its use from as early as 1897, there can be no 'agreement' nor 'disagreement' about its meaning, nor as to how long it has actually been in usage, as Kiki-frog seems to think!?

[footieshorts]

I meant to type 1987, not 1897!

[jno]

erm, that's 1987...

[jno]

well, if it's in Ghostbusters and that was made in 1984, then it's earlier than the OED says; but I'm not going to watch it again to see.

OED tend to rely on written sources; I'm not sure what they do when someone hands them a DVD as evidence. Especially if the alleged dialogue is adlibbed and not in the written script.

[plautus]

It might have something to do with the electric chair, I don't know. Certainly "toast" has an American feel to it; brown bread and other rhyming expressions by non-Londoners grew in popularity with the screening of "Only Fools and Horses".

[Mamyalynne]

x

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0Yx4dhulh0

[Mamyalynne]

.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0Yx4dhulh0