NATIONAL NAME YOUR POISON DAY

NATIONAL NAME YOUR POISON DAY

National Name Your Poison Day on June 8 places a few options before you and challenges you to choose. In the case of National Name Your Poison Day, the idiom can be a cautionary one. So, whether you are choosing how to vote or choosing what you want for dinner, it's time to make a decision and name your poison. 

#NameYourPoisonDay

While "nominate your poison" harkens back to the early days of the temperance movement, the phrase seems to have been used mostly to describe the action of ordering the drink. Even in 1914 as the mayor of New Bavaria, Ohio proposed a law requiring all drinkers to apply for drinking licenses, the phrase was popular. The phrase comes in many forms – pick, choose, or name - and of course nominate your poison.

The phrase "name your poison" is a lighthearted way to make people choose. The term seems to have started around the mid-1800s as a way for patrons to refer to ordering a drink. Phrases like "what's your poison" and "pick your poison" were among variations of the terms, depending on where you lived. 

The earliest publication found about naming your poison was found in the March 24, 1864 edition of Daily National Republican in Washington, D.C. The paper reported  "The latest fashion in Washington of asking a party what they will take to drink is - 'Please nominate your poison, gentlemen.'" The story made its rounds to newspapers across the country and by 1867 writers attributed the colloquial term to folks in Indiana.

HOW TO OBSERVE NATIONAL NAME YOUR POISON DAY

Have you ever had a choice to make where no option seemed to point to a good outcome? Which poison did you pick? Decisions, decisions. We all have to make them. Share your decision-making skills by using #NameYourPoisonDay to post on social media.

NATIONAL NAME YOUR POISON DAY HISTORY

Our research was unable to locate the creator and the origin of National Name Your Poison Day.