File under “Total, T”: Teetotalers do not specifically drink tea.
The etymology of teetotaler causes some folk etymologists trouble, which starts with T which rhymes with P which stands for pool!
That of course is an homage to The Music Man, the Meredith Wilson musical in which con man Harold Hill arrives in River City, Iowa, to bilk the locals. His scam: after convincing parents that kids need a wholesome pursuit (like forming a marching band ") to draw them away from temptation, he’d take preorders on musical equipment, intending to abscond with their cash.
In his con pitch, Harold Hill mostly warns against playing pool, which starts with P and rhymes with T, which stands for trouble, but he also invokes the treachery of drink, including “beer from a bottle” escalated from the seemingly innocent beginnings of sipping “medicinal wine from a teaspoon,” which starts with T which rhymes with tea, which doesn’t stand for teetotaler.
In this little musical lesson you can see the “trouble” some people in River City have with the origins of the word teetotaler. A common misspelling of teatotaler reflects the logical but incorrect assumption that abstainers from drink turn to tea. We’re not sure exactly how the word formed, but wordwatchers agree that
10 If any of my jokes in this book seem completely opaque, check back with me in 300 years— it may take me that long to clarify a few things.
" Engaging in wholesome bake sales would have made for a somewhat more pedestrian musical. “76 pound cakes in the big parade!”
the tee in teetotaler is the letter T. It may be short for temperance, or even for total. It may be an intensifier, kind of a short way of saying “total with a capital 77 ” Which rhymes with C, which stands for creator, and the creator of the word teetotaler has been said to be one Dicky Turner who was buried in Preston, England, in 1847. In fact, this claim to authorship appears on Turner’s Preston tombstone. Even though Turner’s “creation” is generally debunked, I want to believe it, not for any etymological or even logical reasons, but as a vote from the heart. I’ve been placing the etymological rhyming words into the mouth of Harold Hill, the Music con-Man, because in interesting coincidence, Harold was first and most famously played by the dynamic, powerful singer/actor, Robert Preston.