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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