Thread: Cheers...

I've always wondered where that phrase comes from...I'm sure it's not used in the States or any other English speaking country, besides the UK. Everywhere you go, instead of saying "thank you", they simply say "cheers"...I wonder why?

Hi Frank, I think Sabrina knew the meaning, she was looking for the origin:

This is one theory:

This is a fine tribute to the wonderful absurdity of the English language: when you say, “Cheers,” you’re literally saying, “Faces.”
“Face” or “countenance” was the meaning of the original late-Latin word cara, a word whose mysterious history may include Greek, African and Spanish influence.
Old French picked up cara in the forms chiere and chere, which then entered English around 1200 as “cheer.” The meaning remained the same: “face,” or the expression on the face.
The word then became a model for how definitions tend to become more abstract over time. By 1300, “cheer” meant “mood” (presumably, as expressed on the face). “What cheer with you?” was a common greeting; it also became possible to “cheer someone up.”
“Cheer” also became equated with joyfulness; if you were “cheerful,” you were filled with good cheer.
Later in the 1300s, “cheer” could also mean a friendly party, or the food and drink at such a party. From this came the wise maxim, “The fewer the better cheer”—the fewer people at a party, the more food and drink for each.
By the 1500s, the definition was so general that “cheer” could refer to anything that gave comfort or joy.

Another one, very similar, in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheering

[QUOTE=exxcéntrica]Hi Frank, I think Sabrina knew the meaning, she was looking for the origin:

Cheers exxcentrica! (Thank you), and Cheers! (Good Bye)
Kelly

Thanks for the info. Very useful.

Cheers!