Last chance salloon?

flobadob | 19:29 Tue 27th Jul 2010 | Phrases & Sayings

8 Answers

I'm assuming it originated in the wild west but what is the origins of this phrase?

French

Latin

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shaneystar2

Something to do with states and drinking . Last chance to have a tipple before you went over the border into a state that had banned drink .
http://en.wikipedia.o...ki/Last_Chance_Saloon

LoftyLottie

Howdy Partner!!

fredpuli47

Take your pick. The likeliest answer is a saloon in Caldwell City, Kansas, built in 1869. It was so called because it was the last bar where you could get an alcoholic drink before entering Indian territory, where the sale of alcohol was illegal.It burnt down in 1874 when it was attacked by a posse who thought outlaws were holed up inside.
Another candidate is a bar mentioned by Jack London in his writings and a favourite haunt of his. 'Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon' was on the waterfront iin Oakland. California. The owner took that name for it in 1920 because it was the first bar you saw when getting off the ferry there and the last one before you got on it.

flobadob

Question Author

But why is it used over in Ireland and Britain? We don't have saloons.

fredpuli47

Just as, flobadob, we say something odd is out of left field (but don't play baseball) ,we step on the gas (not petrol) , we don't make it to first base (baseball again), we have a ballpark figure (baseball yet again) and so on. The American reference does not stop us using the idiom. The saying is American and makes sense as a such, literally and figuratively.We know what is meant by the image. 'The last chance pub' would not make literal sense. We've never had one.They have had a last chance saloon.
Americans do talk of a hat trick, but don't usually know it's from cricket. The 'traffic' is not all one way!..

jno

because we use a lot of American slang. Blame Hollywood or TV. And rising intonation at the end of a sentence - that's from Australian TV. Isn't globalisation wonderful.

paddywak

We might not have had saloons as such but many of the old traditional pubs had a "Public" bar, used by ordinary working people and a "Saloon" bar, usually better decorated often with higher prices used by the so called better class of professional people, also in a lot of Pubs women were not allowed in the "Public" bar only the "Saloon" bar