SHORT SNORT

Recently, at a party, I was offered a variety of drinks and I heard one guest say, "I'll take a swig of that." I commented, "One hardly ever hears the word SWIG any more."

Another guest asked, "How about a SHORT SNORT?"

I knew the meaning of "short snort" as a small drink, but, naturally, I had to look up "short snort" and "swig" for my own amusement.

I learned something far more fascinating: on Google, below the definition of "short snort", was information about SHORT SNORTERS.

During WWII, military personnel would collect autographs on $1 bills (called "short snorters"), of guys in their units, and it became a drinking game:  if one went to a bar and didn't have his "short snorter" then he would be obligated to buy a round of drinks for all. 

One article referenced that the tradition began in the 1920s with Bush Pilots and continued through WWII, then Korea, and continued with the astronauts.  I asked several Vietnam era veterans, and none had any knowledge of the tradition, except that one of my brothers said that he had seen a segment on PBS' History Detectives about Clark Gable's own "short snorter" which Gable collected during his WWII service.

Although there are many famous examples of "short snorters", probably the most famous one  belonged to Harry Hopkins' (FDR's closest adviser, who was known as the "Architect of the New Deal"); included in the collection of 30 names are: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower, Louis Mountbatten, Anthony Eden, Averill Harriman, Hoyt Vandenburg, Anthony Biddle, George Patton, and FDR's son, Elliott Roosevelt.

 Interestingly, that "short snorter" of Harry Hopkins (pictured at the left) was contained on a British 10-shilling note rather than on U.S. currency, but Hopkins was in London when the majority of the names were collected, and at Casablanca when other names were added.