Can anyone explain this word to me? I found it in Robert Byron's book 'The road to Oxiana'.
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2i, and welcome to EL&U. We'd like added information about your question, such as the context of your question, what you have found (or what confused you) when you researched the answer, etc. With that information, you're likely to get a more helpful answer.– anongoodnurseCommented Jan 3, 2014 at 21:44
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2 Answers
froth-blower (slang) a beer-drinker
That's Chambers Dictionary, 1998. From which you can take it the expression is British slang. I'd have assumed that meaning even if I hadn't found it in the dictionary just now - but as a life-long drinker of warm British beer, I doubt I've ever actually come across it before. It smacks of literary "pseudo-Shakespearean" insult to me, rather than something ordinary people would ever say.
answered Jan 3, 2014 at 21:30
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I think I’ve come across it in that sense, but don’t ask me where. The OED’s definition is: ‘jocular. a beer-drinker: adopted as the title of a certain charitable organization.’ ‘The Times’ of 25 June 1927 reported ‘A company limited by guarantee under the title of ‘Ye Ancient Order of Froth-Blowers, Limited’, has been registered to take over all or part of the property and liabilities of the incorporated Ancient Order of Froth-Blowers.’ Commented Jan 3, 2014 at 21:44
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I've encountered it as a general bon-viveur term, as in "Don't wear your Order of Froth-Blowers tie to a job interview". Obviously the same derivation. Commented Jan 3, 2014 at 22:00
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Dipsos have always had a bad press. I blame Shakespeare: They clepe us drunkards and with swinish phrase \ Soil our addition. And indeed it takes \From our achievements, though performed at height, \ The pith and marrow of our attribute. I remember sniggering at that when I was a schoolboy, but I've only just realised it really was supposed to be addition (I'd always thought it was a typo/archaism for addiction :) Commented Jan 3, 2014 at 22:10
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@TimLymington: I think we can take it for granted practically every usage in speech (and every wearing of such a tie) would be effectively jocular. Somewhere in the back of my wardrobe I think I've still got my decades-old MCP tie - which I don't recall ever wearing to a job interview, but I do recall that some people thought it was in poor taste. Back then there were still plenty of people using Male Chauvinist Pig in earnest, but I doubt there are many of those bra-burners left today. Commented Jan 3, 2014 at 22:26
The word is found in a number of forms: frothblower, froth-blower, froth blower, Frothblower, Froth-Blower, Froth Blower - of these forms, the first and the last are the most frequently found in print. The simple idea of blowing froth off your opaque mug in order to ensure that you had not been short-changed became, in Edwardian times (and, perhaps, before), a pejorative epithet for someone too fond of beer (although younger beer-drinkers, in particular, quite liked being considered 'frothblowers'). Then, in 1924, Bert Temple, remembering his 'frothblowing' youth before the Great War and wishing to raise money for his surgeon's charities, formed Ye Ancient Order of Froth Blowers. By 1931, nearly 700,000 people Empire-wide had joined the spoof Order and both forms of the word became common-knowledge. By consulting newspaper archives of the 1926 to 1931 period, numerous uses of the one-word or two-word version can be found; pre-War references are less common but a Lambeth man, charged with drunkenness in March, 1905, produced in court a printed card showing that "he was a member of the Froth Blowers' Club."
