Comment by treenyc
10 years ago
This is told to me by a Danish classmate (while intoxicated at a party).
He asked me: do you know why we say "Skull" when we drink? I said: No I don't.
He Said: Well, back then during the Viking times. The Danes would fight all the way to the kingdom and cut the off the Skulls of the English princes; Dump out their brains and use the skull as cup for drinks. Hence the word "Skull".
I said: Huh? Interesting!
"And then we also took all their good looking women. And that's why all the Danish girls are soo good looking" Add him.
You got love the Danish people!
There is a lot of debate about the origins of the word, and the skull story is a nice (but brutal) party story. Let me give you another version.
Back in the days people were drinking off bowls, instead of cups as we do today. And guess what the danish word for bowl is? "Skål".
A "skål" is a flat version of "trebolle". You can see one if you Google Image search for "trebolle" to get an idea of how it looks.
That is all bullshit. The word is not “Skull”, it is “Skål”, and it is a normal noun, meaning “Bowl”.