86

[Danvrapp]

Have you ever "eighty-sixed" a player/coach/fan? I had a fellow official tell me that, this past weekend, she 86'd a coach. I eventually realized she tossed him, but couldn't figure out the numerical reference???

Didn't have the pride to tell her I didn't know what it meant

[bob jenkins]

Originally posted by Danvrapp
Have you ever "eighty-sixed" a player/coach/fan? I had a fellow official tell me that, this past weekend, she 86'd a coach. I eventually realized she tossed him, but couldn't figure out the numerical reference???

Didn't have the pride to tell her I didn't know what it meant

From the "Straight Dope":

Dear Cecil:

A bunch of us were wondering where the term "86'd" comes from. We know about "can it" and "deep six" ... but what about "86"? --Scott K., Los Angeles

Dear Scott:

Cecil presumes you are using the term "86" to mean "to put the kibosh on," generally said of some unusually retarded scheme or idea, such as anything thought up by the sales department, the New York office, or that turkey who's angling for your job.

The term derives via a roundabout route from a number code allegedly in wide use in 1920s diners and soda fountains. 86 supposedly meant, "We're all out of the item ordered," said by the cook or some other honcho to a soda jerk or similar minion.

Why 86 and not, say, the square root of 2? The most plausible explanation I've heard is that 86 is rhyming slang for "nix."

By extension 86 came to mean, "Don't serve anything to the indicated party because he is either broke or a creep." (Presumably you see how a code would come in handy in such situations.)

Bartenders later used the term in connection with any person deemed too hammered to serve additional drinks to, and eventually it came to have the all-purpose meaning we assign to it today.

Other lunch counter code numbers (I rely here on the Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins) include 82, I need a glass of water (80 and 81 at times meant the same thing); 99, the manager is on the prowl; 98, ditto for the assistant manager; 33, gimme a cherry-flavored Coke; 55, I crave a root beer; 19, I yearn for a banana split; and 87-1/2, check out the babe over yonder.

I know, so uncouth. But probably better than the term favored by high school guys in my day, namely "sluts on the right."

--CECIL ADAMS

[rainmaker]

Originally posted by Danvrapp
Have you ever "eighty-sixed" a player/coach/fan? I had a fellow official tell me that, this past weekend, she 86'd a coach. I eventually realized she tossed him, but couldn't figure out the numerical reference???

Didn't have the pride to tell her I didn't know what it meant

Yea, Cecil knows his stuff. The ref you were talking to probably used to be a waitress or cook or else she had dated a waiter (or waitress!) or cook.

[Hawks Coach]

I used to wait and we used "86" when a customer changed their order. So waiters would tell the cook to "86 the pancakes" and give em the french toast, er, freedom toast.

[CYO Butch]

Thanks for the derivation. That was a new on on me.
My favorite number reference is not 10-4 (from 2-way radio usage) but actually from an old list of catch phrases and punch lines that made its way around during the 70's. The idea was that if you just used the number, people would know the joke and laugh without having to spend time telling it all over again. The one that I still use to this day is "585". It stands for "Pardon me sir, but I believe you mistook me for someone who gives a sh*t." Fortuantely, the people I tend to say it to are either my close friends to whom I have taught it, or people who don't know what I'm talking about at all.

[Hawks Coach]

Originally posted by CYO Butch
Thanks for the derivation. That was a new on on me.
My favorite number reference is not 10-4 (from 2-way radio usage) but actually from an old list of catch phrases and punch lines that made its way around during the 70's. The idea was that if you just used the number, people would know the joke and laugh without having to spend time telling it all over again. The one that I still use to this day is "585". It stands for "Pardon me sir, but I believe you mistook me for someone who gives a sh*t." Fortuantely, the people I tend to say it to are either my close friends to whom I have taught it, or people who don't know what I'm talking about at all.

And the 585 comes from??? Can't begin to relate that one.

[rainmaker]

Originally posted by Hawks Coach
I used to wait and we used "86" when a customer changed their order. So waiters would tell the cook to "86 the pancakes" and give em the french toast, er, freedom toast.

In this case, 86 would still have a similar meaning. It carries the added connotations of "make it so". In other words, make the pancakes become 86'ed. I'm surprised that's the only use you had for it. I've worked in several restaurants in several parts of the country, and it's always also included things that were used up ("Tape the 86 list up here") and customers that we needed to get rid of.

[CYO Butch]

Originally posted by Hawks Coach

And the 585 comes from??? Can't begin to relate that one.

It was a gag sheet that was passed around, much like jokes go around the Internet today. It was about 15 pages long, as I recall, with a bunch of punch lines without the jokes themselves. It was mostly classic lines like "I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to the duck", or "She was so ugly that I chewed off my arm so I wouldn't wake her when I got up". There was no real derivation - just something somebody put together and it developed a life of its own. I first saw it doing some work for the Maryland State Police up in Pikesville waaaay too many years ago.