Optic

Use this forum to suggest Good Words for Professor Beard.
Perry Lassiter
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 3333
Joined: Wed Jan 03, 2007 12:41 pm
Location: RUSTON, LA
Contact:

Optic

Postby Perry Lassiter » Sun Dec 14, 2014 11:45 pm

I'm in the middle of a British mystery, and a lot of the action takes place in a pub. The writer keeps saying the bartender fills the tankard or whatever from "the optic." In context the optic appears to be the handle or lever on the spigot that you press or pull to fill the glass. I can find no record of this use in any of the several dictionaries I use. Can anyone help? Is this a British isage?
pl

User avatar
Slava
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 8013
Joined: Thu Sep 28, 2006 9:31 am
Location: Finger Lakes, NY

Re: Optic

Postby Slava » Mon Dec 15, 2014 7:22 am

As it's meant for shot drinks, I'm not sure how it would work for draft items, but here's what I got from dictionary.com:
(Brit) trademark a device attached to an inverted bottle for dispensing measured quantities of liquid, such as whisky, gin, etc.
Perhaps our cisatlantic co-Agorans can be of more help.
Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

User avatar
call_copse
Senior Lexiterian
Posts: 668
Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2009 7:42 am
Location: Southampton

Re: Optic

Postby call_copse » Mon Dec 15, 2014 8:31 am

I'm not sure about filling a tankard, it's generally for liquor, a device for rapidly measuring a set amount, often 35ml or 25ml, attached to an inverted bottle.

Image

I guess the optic bit comes from the visual of observing the chamber filling up with liquid, the customer can see they are not being short changed. Are these called something else stateside?
Iain


Return to “Good Word Suggestions”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 14 guests