talk shop
talk shop (idiomatic expression)
/tɔːk ʃɒp/
Meanings
- Discussing work or business casually.
- Engaging in insider technical talk.
- Conversing about professional matters.
- Chatting using trade-specific jargon.
- Focusing excessively on work interests.
- (literal) To converse in or about a retail shop.
Synonyms: discuss work; work-related chat; job talk; professional talk; technical discussion.
Example Sentences
- At the wedding reception, the two doctors started to talk shop, leaving others bored.
- The programmers began to talk shop about coding languages, and the rest of the group looked puzzled.
- The teachers talk shop so much about curriculum changes that their friends steered the conversation elsewhere.
- During their lunch break, the clerks liked to talk shop about their daily customers. (literal)
Variants
- talking shop
- talk about shop
- shop talk
Origin and History
Talking shop is a British idiom meaning to discuss one’s work, trade, or technical matters, often when such discussion is out of place. The phrase emerges in the early 19th-century British press and is best understood as a combination of the already-existing verb pattern “to talk X” (for example, talk politics or talk sport) and the extended sense of shop as “one’s trade or calling,” which was established in the early 19th century.
Theories and Beliefs about the Origin
Semantic Extension of Shop
The sense of shop meaning “one’s trade, craft or calling” appears in the early 1800s. From this, to talk shop naturally developed to mean “to talk about one’s trade.”
Syntactic Patterning
The idiom also follows a productive English pattern, talk + topical noun, used in phrases like talk sport or talk politics. This explains the quick establishment of talking shop once shop had taken on the meaning of “trade or profession.”
Press and Social Practice
Another theory connects the phrase to the culture of the press and professional gatherings of the early 19th century. Groups of specialists such as sportsmen, artisans, or scientists often met in pubs, coffeehouses, or private clubs, and their narrowly focused discussions were later described in the press. This context gave talking shop its early meaning and its later mildly pejorative connotation, implying tedious or inappropriate technical talk in social settings.
Workshop Imagery
A further interpretation emphasizes the literal image of the workshop. A shop was the workplace where tradespeople gathered and exchanged technical knowledge, so the phrase evoked workers “talking shop” among themselves.
Country of Origin
The expression originated in England (United Kingdom). The earliest printed attestations are found in British newspapers and periodicals from the 1820s and 1830s, firmly placing the idiom’s roots in English usage.
Earliest Printed Records
First Appearance
The earliest secure printing of the expression is found in Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, dated Sunday, 26 June 1831. The anonymous article included the remark:
“At such times, at dinner and breakfast, spirits are apt to flag, and talking’ shop’ under the circumstances is anything but consoling.”
First Use of Talk Shop as a Verb
The earliest attestation of the verb form to talk shop appears in The Times (London) in 1846, within a letter or notice contributed to the newspaper. This demonstrates that by the mid-19th century, the verbal phrase was circulating in British English.
Later American Form
The noun shoptalk is recorded in American sources from 1881, showing how the phrase was adapted into a compound noun form in the United States during the late 19th century.
Semantic Development and Usage Notes
The meaning of the expression shifted over time. In its earliest appearances, the phrase was neutral and simply described specialists discussing their work or trade. By the mid- to late-19th century, however, it often carried a mildly pejorative tone, used to describe inappropriate or dull technical talk introduced into a social conversation. The phrase spread widely from British periodicals into general British usage and later into American English, where it evolved into forms such as shoptalk.
Origin Conclusion
The idiom talk shop has its roots in early 19th-century Britain. It grew out of the extension of shop to mean “one’s trade” and followed the common syntactic pattern talk + topic. The first securely documented appearance is in Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle on 26 June 1831, with the verb form to talk shop attested in The Times in 1846. The phrase expanded its meaning over the course of the 19th century and spread into American English with forms like shoptalk.
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