queue à l'anglaise

CONT: The origins of the word ""cocktail"" are mysterious. It first appeared (in America) in the first decade of the 19th century, roughly contemporary with ""cocktail"" meaning ""horse with a cocked tail"" -- that is, one cut short and so made to stick up like a cock's tail -- but whether the two words are connected, and if so, how the drink came to named after such a horse, are not at all clear.
OBS: A cruel fashion, current in the United States of America, of breaking and setting the tails of saddle horses to give a high and showy tail carriage.