Comments on: Saloon = sedan? Etymology, please http://wordlily.com/2008/09/02/saloon-sedan-etymology-please/ For the love of language (and some fiber arts, too) Wed, 15 Feb 2012 05:18:33 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: david d http://wordlily.com/2008/09/02/saloon-sedan-etymology-please/#comment-3035 Thu, 21 May 2009 15:40:55 +0000 http://wordlily.wordpress.com/?p=456#comment-3035 Don’t know about the OED, but as fars as English goes it maty be derived from the rhyming slang Saloon Bar = Car. Drooping the bar we have Saloon.

]]> By: wordlily http://wordlily.com/2008/09/02/saloon-sedan-etymology-please/#comment-1797 Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:40:39 +0000 http://wordlily.wordpress.com/?p=456#comment-1797 Thanks, Dawn! It still doesn’t make sense to me, though. I’d found the definition, I just wonder how that came to be.

]]> By: Dawn Goldberg http://wordlily.com/2008/09/02/saloon-sedan-etymology-please/#comment-1796 Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:15:51 +0000 http://wordlily.wordpress.com/?p=456#comment-1796 All you had to do was ask. :) It’s not everyone who has the full OED upstairs. (Of course, because my OED is upstairs, it took me these many days to go upstairs and get the volume I needed and bring it downstairs to my computer. Go figure.)

The 4th definition for “saloon” is “a large cabin in a passenger-boat for the common use of passengers in general or for those paying first-class fares; passenger cabin for an aeroplane.” 4b definition is “a railway carriage without compartments, furnished more or less luxuriously as a drawing-room or for a specific purpose.” 4c definition is “a type of motor car with a closed body for four or more passengers.”

1st noted use of “saloon” in the 4c definition: Motor manual from 1908 (“Other forms of bodies fitted to more expensive cars include the brougham, landaulet, saloon, double phaeton, etc.”) Another use from 1927 (B.K. Seymour in Three Wives: “He … secured the services of a Buick saloon.”

How’s that? :)

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