I swear (though the facts do not bear this out) that I first heard this word from a German exchange student/friend of mine back in high school. He was claiming it was a word in German that we didn't have an equivalent for. Basically he was saying on a walk back up to this very cabin that he would shave down instead of up to avoid looking like a:
Milquetoast -- a timid, meek, or unassertive person.
Here's what I found out from Merriam-Webster:
Caspar Milquetoast is a comic strip character created in 1924 by cartoonist Harold T. Webster. Beginning a few years after the character's debut, the term milquetoast came to describe a timid or meek person. Caspar's last name is fitting because milk toast is a weak, bland concoction of buttered toast served in a dish of warm milk.
Research shows that none of this has to do with German. The strip was not German, nor was the creator, nor the characters. So really, I might be way off. Andy, if you read this, will you please enlighten me?
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