Sink a couple of jars.

[information]

Can anyone tell how the saying 'sink a couple of jars' came about. I know it means having a few drinks, but wondered if there was any significance to the word 'jars'

Many thanks,
Jersey, C.I.

[Querelle12]

Imagine a poor man's inn. No glasses but old jam jars which are dipped into the beer barrel - the jars are sunk. Hence the expression.

[Quizmonster]

Querelle's answer above is a nice idea, but not really accurate, I'm afraid. A jar was originally an earthenware container for holding oil and other liquids and later took on the meaning of a specific quantity of 20 gallons. Not until the 1920s did it take on the joking, colloquial sense of a drink of beer.
The earliest recorded use of the word in this way was in Sean O'Casey's play Juno and the Paymale-bird. (Of course, I refer to a word which opens with c and ends in ock!) Bentham doesn't understand what Boyle means by a wet, so Boyle replies, "A wet - a jar - a boul!" We've used it thus ever since.

[juandelacruz]

I can''t understand why quizmaster is so exquisite about the *******. A **** is a male bird - got a dictionary at hand? He's drawing attention to the very thing he's pretending to avoid.

[juandelacruz]

Goodness, gracious, they've asterisked out my words. How fratefully nace.