What do you do with a toaster lying in your kitchen? Simply, you toast/ heat a slice of bread to make it warm, brown and crisp, using a toaster which is an electrical machine for making toast. Hence, a toaster is used to make something warm and crisp and usually brown or blackish by the process of heating the intended object like a loaf of bread. It means when you toast something such as bread, you cook it at a high temperature so that it becomes crispy and crunchy. Once done so, and before you dish it out, you apply some jelly, honey or other ingredients as your taste buds call for. Once ready to be eaten, such a dish is called a toast.
Having toast for breakfast is a very common choice even in today’s India where the food habits of the young generation have a new trend.
Further, raising a toast in the evening is yet another fashion in western countries wherein people raise their glasses of drinks and express a wish for happiness and success, or offer congratulations on an achievement.
The person receiving congratulations and wishes on the day is the toast of the evening and the one who presides over the event and introduces the subject and guests is the toastmaster. Thus, a toastmaster is the one who is responsible for proposing toasts, introducing speakers, and making other formal announcements at the event.
On the negative connotation, the phrase ‘be toast’ means to be in a lot of trouble, to be completely ruined, finished, defeated, etc. His career is toast with his expulsion from the organization. On the other hand, on a positive note, the phrase the toast of a place or field is used to mean to be admired, to be popular at a place or in a group for a certain achievement.
Lo! If you are toast, it means you are ruined. But if you are the toast of a particular place, you are the person who is very much admired and popular there for something you have recently done.Thus, to toast something is used to mean to heat something to the extent that it gets brown. Moreover, it is used to mean to warm something as in I sat toasting my feet near the fire in bone-chilling cold weather.
Seeing that it was really very cold on the day my friends also huddled around the bonfire to toast their bodies. However, to toast somebody/something means to raise a glass of something in the air and drink it to wish somebody/something success, happiness, etc. The newly wedded couple was toasted in champagne with a lot of greetings. A toast was raised/proposed to them.
Similarly, to drink a toast to somebody means to wish somebody good luck, health or success with glasses being raised for a drink. Let’s all drink a toast to the bride and groom. Let’s toast our success: Let’s have a drink to celebrate our success. To drink/propose/raise a toast to someone is to toast someone.
A wedding toast is a few words of wishes or blessings for the newlywed couple, after which all the guests take a sip of the drink in agreement. Hence, a wedding toast is one of the greatest gifts you can give to newlyweds. We need to learn the art of writing or giving the best possible wedding toasts.
A toast as an honour has become a ritual in today’s society irrespective of geographical region. Then, let’s have a victory toast.
*The writer of this piece is Dr Birbal Jha, a noted author, accredited with having created a revolution in English training In India with the slogan ‘English for all’.
