Roy has come the closest so far as to the reason bottle openers are referred
to as church keys! The story that I was told when I was but a youngster was
that a church key was a very large Ward style of key. You guys are familar
with the term "skeleton" key, right? That is the most simplistic Ward style
key used in the lock industry. Anyway, someone discovered that a real church
key (read very large Ward style key) could be used to open a bottle. The
cuts in the key face would grasp the bottlecap well enough to open the
bottle...
Now, over the decades that the expression has been used, it has come to mean
both bottle and can opener. I never said that anyone was "wrong" by
referring to a can opener as a church key. I only stated that a proper
church key was a bottle opener! It's kinda like calling gelatin "Jello". The
brand name has overcome the identity of the product itself.
I just wanted to be clear. Like Ed says, WD-40 is not a penetrating oil...
The can says it is, but it doesn't say that it a very poor penetrating oil.
Same difference. We need to pass these Semantic musings down to our kids!!!
Kent
1960 Bugeye
An authentic church key and an electric can opener...
> Ok folks, its time to put this churchkey thing to rest. When I was a
> kid in high school during the early 40s, and believe it or not I was
> once a kid, we called anything that could open a bottle or can of beer
> a churchkey.
>
> So, why is it that a can opener is called a churchkey?
>
> Well, there are basically two reasons. The first is that for some of
> us, opening a beer bottle -is- a religious experience.
>
> The other is that churches used to have big doors with big locks, with
> equally large keys. It is my guess that the term churchkey must have
> come from medieval times when Christian monks were notoriously known to
> be preoccupied with their wine cellars.
>
> Churchkeys (the real ones) are often oversized hunks of metal, kinda
> like churchkeys, the bottle-opening kind.
>
> So, there! Anyone for a beer?
>
> Roy Rogers
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