Rush/Work the Growler (1883, 1884) on Ancestry.com--(Some questions)

[Jonathon Green]

My tenpennorth:

As regards slang, the single predecessor of the beer-can growler is the use of the word as a synonym for a four-wheeled cab. Given that the cab and the can both convey something (people, beer) there appears to be at least a feasible link. As for the etymology of growler = cab, there are theories that it is a pun on the earlier sulky, another conveyance. Which of course brings us back to the image of 'complaints/complaining'. On the other hand the 'growls' in both sense may refer to a. wheels moving over rough cobblestones, and b. a beer can sliding across a bar. FWIW I think the 'noise' links are more likely. I don't think that a complaining wife or whoever gives the name to an inanimate object. It is the object - cab, beer can - that 'growls', not a person.

Jonathon Green