Public Bar (As in Pub) Where did the BAR get its name from?

Question

Public Bar (As in Pub) Where did the BAR get its name from?

Answer 1

In the early days of pubs there was an actual bar in front of the counter. Never found out the reason for it though.

Answer 2

According to the Oxford English Dictionary:

"Bar

A barrier or counter, over which drink (or food) is served out to customers, in an inn, hotel, or tavern, and hence, in a coffee-house, at a railway-station, etc.; also, the space behind this barrier, and sometimes the whole apartment containing it.

1592 GREENE Art Conny Catch. III. 20 He was acquainted with one of the seruants..of whom he could haue two pennyworth of Rose-water for a peny..wherefore he would step to the barre vnto him. 1601 SHAKES. Twel. N. I. iii. 74 Bring your hand to'th Buttry barre, and let it drinke. 1712 ADDISON Spect. No. 403 9, [I] laid down my Penny at the Barr..and made the best of my way to Cheapside. 1835 MARRYAT Jac. Faith. xii, He sees the girl in the bar. 1837 HAWTHORNE Amer. Note-bks. (1871) I. 42 A bottle of champagne was quaffed at the bar."

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Answer 3

as far as i gathered the word bar is a syncdoche. a syncdoche is a term denoting a part of something is used to refer to the whole thing. as the term bar was derived from "specialized counter".

the only term that bar is recognized for in another language is "son. in hebrew.

Answer 4

It is bar in the sense of "prevent" as it stops the customers getting access to the stock without paying.

Hence you can get the crazy sentence " he was barred from the bar because he threatened someone with a bar"

Answer 5

because they had to balance the alcohol on something?

Answer 6

The bar is the counter, a long "bar" of wood, where they set the drinks and money. Originally (and I mean like back in the Middle Ages) there wasn't a "bar" as we know it, but more of a "barrier" to separate the drinking public from the "off limits" area where they kept the money, glasses etc. Someone eventually  got the bright idea of the flat wooden top to serve on.

Answer 7

bar 2 -  

"tavern," 1592, from the bars of the barrier or counter over which drinks or food were served to customers (see bar (1)). Barmaid is from 1772; bar-tender is 1836, Amer.Eng.; barfly "habitual drunkard" is from 1910.

Answer 8

Barbaric

Answer 9

Bar or foot rail above the floor at the serving counter is what I heard.

Answer 10

The word BAR as in Public Bar means the COUNTER where a person stands to order their beer.

Here in London the BAR in a pub is often called THE JUMP.  The reason being is that the purpose of the BAR is to stop customers (drunken) from taking beer for free.  It also acts as a secure barrier between the Bar Staff and their Customers.

Originally the title "PUBLIC BAR" also meant that the prices of beer sold in such a BAR were under the control of the local authority.  This was done to ensure that the working man could afford his lunchtime pint of beer.

In the 18th and early 19th C no one ever drank plain water unless they wanted to die.  Small beer of low alc was consumed instead.  I think most of us including the kids were never quite sober and with Gin at a Penny a Pint things really did become quite serious.  Binge drinking is not new to the British, it's very much a part of our way of life.

H-Net Review: W. Scott Haine <[e-mail]> on Dublin Pub Life ...

By 1750 the term "public house" had become common and was subsequently shortened

to "pub." It would have been interesting to know the history of the term ...

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi... - Cached

"SHADES," A PUBLIC-HOUSE BAR: ORIGIN OF THE WORD -- BEDE s3-IV (98 ...

http://nq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint...