To me, that would either be the drink that is flavored with quinine and usually served with gin, or then a general term for some sort of beverage with health benefits. (Quinine is a cure for malaria, although normal tonic water would need to be consumed at a daily amount of about 500 gallons to have enough quinine in it, and that amount of fluids would kill you.)
Define proper English? The King James Bible? How the Queen of England speaks now? The US does not speak the same language as England. I think we can all agree that the language of the US is not the English you hear in England.
I know most were sold as medicine at first an called tonics. did not know the term was still used.
I did not mean to offend you, and I certainly don't mean that there would be anything wrong with dialects, they truly enrich languages. I speak my own native Swedish with a dialect too. The same goes for Finnish. But I would not use some of the words in written form that I normally use when speaking. Chest of drawers might be pronounced Chester Drawers in some parts, but it's not a term that you would find in a dictionary. Nothing wrong with using it in spoken form though, or even in a online forum discussion. But if I were to write a book, my editor would certainly get a chuckle out of using Chester Drawers when referring to a chest of drawers. And I sincerely hope that English teachers in US schools don't go around saying it's spelled chester drawers. Sort of a learn the rules before you break them situation. I admit to crossing a zebra crossing on foot with the little red guy glowing there, but if I ever procreate, I would not teach my children to do so.
That's probably where it stems from.
