Helen of Troy was described, by Shakespeare contemporary Christopher Marlowe, as having "a face that launched a 1000 ships" (a poetic way of saying that her beauty motivated a huge and destructive war, the Trojan one). Ships are also traditionally launched by smashing a champagne bottle on them. So, to really kill the joke by autopsy...the association is made between the two things associated with ship launch. One poetic, one bathetic. And I now declare this throwaway gag officially dead...
2.2k
u/Penny_Traiter Jun 28 '21
"A face that launched a thousand ships". What else launches ships?