English Idiom: On the wagon
Did you know that many people get on the wagon in January? Yep, it’s true; it’s tough to find a seat or a place to stand at the beginning of the year.
You see, after all the drinking and partying during Christmas and New Year’s, many people feel they need to take a break, so they stop drinking alcohol.
If someone says that they are on the wagon, they mean that they have stopped drinking alcohol.
I did a bit of research to find the origin of this expression. I learned that the phrase used to be on the ‘water’ wagon.
If a person stops drinking alcohol, what else are they going to drink? Water, of course.
In days gone by, there was no indoor plumbing, so in many places, water wagons came into communities to deliver water.
I suppose the odds are that the water wagon driver drank as much alcohol as anybody else, but the idiom to use when you stop drinking alcohol is on the wagon, and my job as a teacher is to teach it, not make sense of it.
Take care everyone and remember that many people step up onto the wagon in January, but they probably won’t stay there very long.
It’s easier to fall off than it is to get on.
Resolutions are made to be broken after all.