enough beer to sink a battleship

[barmy]

What is the origin of this phrase and when was it first used as a measure of volume?

The type of liguid changes, enough water, enough tea, etc but the meaning is always consistent with a vast quantity.

Thanks

[delboy3]

I've heard Peter O'Toole say he'd drank enough booze to float a ship - and had had some interesting voyages.

Sorry, that doesn't answer your question but I just wanted to add it.

[Quizmonster]

No amount of liquid is likely to 'sink' a battleship...after all, it's designed to remain on the surface of a liquid! So, as Delboy suggested above, the correct version is 'enough to float a battleship'. Being such a large vessel, a battleship would require rather a lot of liquid to make it float.
However, if the commodity was a solid - coal, say, or gold - then perhaps 'sink' might be used. If the phrase now is used with liquids - and I myself have never heard it used in that way - then it is typical of how the language is misapplied so that it says the exact opposite of what it means. "Cheap at half the price" is another perfect example of this process.

[Fink-Knottle]

Barmy-please forgive my digression

QM-'cheap at half the price' has always puzzled me-but here in West Yorkshire we say;-'cheap at twice the price'-which,I'm sure you'll agree ,makes more sense.

We don't make mistakes where brass is concerned.

[Quizmonster]

Click here, F-K, for an etymologist's views on 'cheap at half the price'. He believes it to be basically a joke inversion of the real thing...'cheap at twice the price'...as suggested earlier.

[Fink-Knottle]

Thanks for that QM- Very interesting.