Question of the Day - 04 April 2022

Actually, we have answered this question, to the best of our ability anyway, but that was 14 years ago (in 2008), so we figure it's time to run it again. 

There are, in fact, many theories for the origin of the term "86'd," none of which has been or can be proven definitively.

One thing they all have in common, however, is that they have nothing to do with the world of gambling, so we can lay to rest the idea that it originated with Benny Binion or anything revolving around casinos.

Most versions of the 86 etymology are related to restaurants and bars and our gut feeling is that this general area is the most likely source, but we'll list all the explanations we've come across, in an approximate reverse order of likelihood.

One explanation is that the term derives from British merchant shipping, in which the standard crew size was 85. Hence, the 86th man was left behind. Probably not.
 
Another dubious theory is that the soup-kitchen cauldrons of the Great Depression held enough for 85 cups of soup, meaning the 86th unfortunate in line was out of luck.
 
In Subchapter X, the "Punitive Articles" of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which deals with offenses under the code, Article 86 is the one covering absence without leave. But again, this meaning doesn't really fit the subsequent contexts to which the term is applied.
 
One writer we came across explained that in culinary school, he was told that it was a reference for trash barges, which were required to reach 86 fathoms before dumping their load.
 
 Apparently, in the 1930s, the term was applied to the streetcar line that operated on First Avenue in New York City (where several of the possible explanations have their origins). The line ran from 14th to 86th streets, where the motorman shouted, "Eighty-six! End of the line! All out!"
 
 The Oxford English Dictionary suggests the term may have been rhyming slang for the word "nix," (which, surprisingly, is an 18th century English word originating from the German nichts or nothing.) If true, the rhyming slang was created much later in the U.S., however, which doesn't quite gel, since rhyming slang was generally the preserve of the Cockney inhabitants of London's East End. 
 
Another theory is that 6 feet deep by 8 feet long were the common dimensions for a grave plot, hence being "86'd" meant being taken permanently out of the equation, particularly in the military. And that probably accounts for the belief about Binion and burying bodies of casino undesirables out in the desert.
 
Entering the realm of eating and drinking, we believe that's the most likely place for the origins of this term to lie. Of these, the vaguest has it that a fashionable New York restaurant, of unknown identity, had a total of 85 tables; hence allocating someone table 86 meant they weren’t getting in.
 
Chumley’s, a Prohibition-era speakeasy and now bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, claims the term 86 as its own. Located at 86 Bedford Street, the story goes that when a raid was imminent, a collaborating cop would tip off the management to hide the booze and get rid of the clientele via a secret exit. Other sources suggest that the chronology of this story may not work, however, since Chumley’s didn’t open until 1927 and the term was apparently in use a couple of years prior to that. Still, the coincidence may well have contributed to the term’s growing use.
 
Another popular, although again utterly unsubstantiated, explanation is that in the saloons of the Wild West era, if a man was getting drunk and disorderly, the bar watered down his drink from the regular 100 proof served to men to the weaker 86 proof served to women. This insult to his masculinity was apparently deemed sufficient to encourage the inebriated patron to leave.
 
In bar culture, the term is attributed to Article 86 of the New York State Liquor Code, which specifically outlines the circumstances in which a patron should be refused alcohol or removed from the bar.
 
Perhaps the most credible version of the restaurant theory comes from Delmonico’s in New York, one of the country’s oldest restaurants (though it's been closed for the past couple of years). Item number 86 on an early menu was a rib eye steak that, being popular, regularly sold out. From here the term entered the general catering lexicon to mean an item that had sold out or was out of stock, and this remains our favorite for the most likely original use of the term.