This account of the word’s etymology is just one of several given in the Wikipedia article, and is not mentioned in Etymonline or generally favoured elsewhere. The OED, in a long entry, concludes it is most likely a deliberate, emphatic reduplication of “total”. This is because early temperance was limited only to spirits, whereas later movements emphasised _total_ abstinence.
“.. the adverb tee-totally, as an emphasised form of totally, was used in U.S. in 1832, and it has also been said to have been common in Ireland from a much earlier date (…) It has also been asserted that, in the total abstinence sense, the word arose at Lansing, New York, in Jan. 1827, from the use on pledge cards of T. to indicate ‘total’, and the consequent collocation ‘T.-total’.”
But even this is debated. Nothing to do with tea, anyways.
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So the term teetotal is a bit of an insult
This account of the word’s etymology is just one of several given in the Wikipedia article, and is not mentioned in Etymonline or generally favoured elsewhere. The OED, in a long entry, concludes it is most likely a deliberate, emphatic reduplication of “total”. This is because early temperance was limited only to spirits, whereas later movements emphasised _total_ abstinence.
“.. the adverb tee-totally, as an emphasised form of totally, was used in U.S. in 1832, and it has also been said to have been common in Ireland from a much earlier date (…) It has also been asserted that, in the total abstinence sense, the word arose at Lansing, New York, in Jan. 1827, from the use on pledge cards of T. to indicate ‘total’, and the consequent collocation ‘T.-total’.”
But even this is debated. Nothing to do with tea, anyways.