What is the origin of the expression 'to get a fair shake'?

Answer 1

Current Meaning: The idiom "to get a fair shake" means to "give somebody a chance to prove himself honorable" or "show the balanced or positive aspect of a negative situation.

Original Meaning: "Prove the quality of your whiskey is worth my money."

Origin: The idiom originated the 1790's in the newly-formed Unites States of America during the era of the Whiskey Rebellion. It stemmed from the non-scientific, but effective technique of shaking whiskey to assess its quality.

Explanation:

In the late 1700s, post war USA, making whiskey was a major source of supplementing income. When the new American government was looking for ways to retire its war debt, among the sources, it looked at taxing whiskey distilleries. The effort to tax whiskey, created an uproar as it threatened family incomes. That forced whiskey production to become largely illegal, untaxed, "bootleg" whiskey. The whiskey quality, or to be more exact, the alcohol content, was always in question.

The easiest way to approximate the alcohol content (and thus the purity of distillation) was to pour some into a sufficiently-translucent glass bottle, cap it, and shake it rigorously for 2 or 3 seconds. Stopping the shaking, if the aeration bubbles lingered in the body of the liquid and if it produced a lingering top-layer froth, then the alcohol level was low. Conversely, if the bubbles disappeared immediately with no "head" of froth, then the alcohol content was very high and the whiskey was "good MASH." (On a side note, distilled water produces the same behavior, bubbles don't linger.)

However, either gently-shaking or under-shaking the whiskey could create the fewer bubbles and, thereby, the illusion of "higher" alcohol content. Thus is was important to give the whiskey a rigorous shake in order to seek the end result. It is not clear as to whether "fair" refers to the rigorousness of the shake or whether it refers to the honorable intent to shake the whiskey.

Nonetheless, the expression, "to give a man a fair shake," took hold as a request to be honest with an other man and deliver a proper whiskey that passed the high alcohol test by giving it a rigorous "fair shake").

By the early 1800's it had become a metaphor to the salience of business transactions and, subsequently, to the measure of personal character and to the deference for a balanced positive perspective:

"Be fair and honest with him."

"Give him the benefit of the doubt."

"Find something positive to say about him."