Can anyone help me out? I was asked by one of my sons as to the origin of the term pickle. My 1st guess is Red Barber, but it's only a guess.

"Pickle" is a shortened version of "pick-off" and then eventually developed it's own persona as a run-down.

Thanks, Mick. I guess I needed to be more specific in my 1st message. What I'm after is: to whom the origination of the term is credited (& approximately when it was coined).

A quick check of colloquialisms indicates that "being in a pickle" was used to describe someone in a tough predicament years before Red Barber, perhaps before baseball.

...Probably Shakespeare. ;)

<b>...Probably Shakespeare.</b>


Or Childress. :D

Now <i>THAT'S</i> funny! ROTFLMAO!!!

in a pickle
 

Origin
From Shakespeare's The Tempest.

ALONSO And Trinculo is reeling ripe: where should they
Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em?
How camest thou in this pickle?

TRINCULO I have been in such a pickle since I
saw you last that, I fear me, will never out of
my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing.


(from a British phrase finding site)

Ian Clarke