"package store"

[Frank Abate]

Lynne M said:

>>
I notice that the AHD doesn't have it as a regionalism, but the
definition make no reference to any laws that would have to hold in a
region in order for its liquor stores to be called 'package stores'.
<<

I would not rely on *absence* of a label in a dictionary as evidence of
anything.
Dictionary editors are trained to label only if the evidence is very clear.
No label
might seem to suggest that the term is general, but this is not absolutely
the case.

In a similar vein, the US dicts sometimes include British terms without
labels, when they
should properly have "chiefly Brit." or some such, at least.  I think one
factor in this is that
British literature is, of course, widely read and assigned in the US, and
thus such terms get into
US dicts. without labels because the term seems familiar to the editor from
general reading.

and:

>>
(Incidentally, does anywhere in America call these things "off-licenses"?)
<<

The term "off-licence" (note spelling) is a Briticism.  Three dicts I have
handy (the Oxford D and
Lang Guide; WNW4, and the British New Oxford Dict of Eng) give a "Brit."
label.

A new aspect I'd like to suggest for this thread:  given the apparently
spotty distribution and usage
of "package store" and the UK use of "off-licence", I suspect the influence
of legislative language in both.
I know that the UK has the "Licencing Act of 1964" controlling sale of
alcohol in pubs, etc.
It would be interesting to see if "package store" has pre-Prohibition cites,
or if its usage grew largely
after the repeal of Prohibition, when people saw the term on signs and (as
Barry showed) in trade
publications.  Certainly "liquor store" is a quite transparent compound,
whereas "package store" is not.

Frank Abate