Where did "Slide" guitar come from ??

[Clete Ritta]

Hmm, somehow "tonebar guitar" never caught on? I usually drop the word guitar completely when describing either pedal steel or lap steel to avoid adding confusion.

...I always referred to my D-10 as an electric table, or a cheese slicer....I'm gonna go with "electric cheese slider."

I told an audience recently that my pedal steel was an "electric cheese slicer". The singer grinned and looked over at me and said, "Well, Clete...are you about ready to cut the cheese?" I then leaned over to one side and said, "I just did!" Big laughs!

[David Matzenik]

I suspect the term slide or slider was a derogatory expletive used when a roadhouse blues-band guitarist found he was being paid after a gig in very small hamburgers. The bottleneck may just be debris from the eventual altercation. The term slider is preserved to this day, at our local "Sizzler."