New Year’s Eve is associated with many things; the ball dropping in Time’s Square, a kiss as the countdown ends, singing Auld Lang Syne, making resolutions, and of course imbibing too much alcohol. The last item is the one that has most come to epitomize the day and mindless drunkenness will be prevalent throughout the land tonight.
There are many labels for the advanced state of inebriation that many will proudly achieve tonight. One of my favorites is “knee walking drunk” which is oft employed (and occasionally personified) by one Brian “Saint Paul” Ward. Another is “over served” which seems to place responsibility for one’s intoxication on another actor. If it wasn’t for that meddling bartender who kept pushing drinks my way. I’ve witnessed this sort of projection first hand when neighbors seek to explain their over indulgence by blaming it solely on the two cocktails they consumed at our basement bar. Yeah, that was it. It wasn’t the six drinks you had before that or the five afterward.
Anyway, it’s always fun to try to come up with new ways to indicate that someone has had one or thirteen too many. And sometimes the best source for new material is mining the past.
Today’s WSJ has a sampling of from “The Drinker’s Dictionary” in the Pennsylvania Gazette, published by Benjamin Franklin, Jan. 13, 1737:
A: He is Addled, He’s casting up his Accounts, He’s Afflicted
B: He’s Biggy, Been at Barbadoes, Drunk as a Wheel-Barrow
C: Cherry Merry, Half Way to Concord, Sir Richard has taken off his Considering Cap
D: Kill’d his Dog, Has Dipp’d his Bill, He’s seen the Devil
E: He’s Prince Eugene, Wet both Eyes, Got a brass Eye
F: He’s Fishey, Crump Footed, Been to France, His Flag is out
G: Groatable, Been before George, Globular, Got the Glanders
H: Half and Half, Top Heavy, Hammerish, Loose in the Hilts
I: He’s Intoxicated
J: Jambled, Going to Jerusalem, Been to Jerico, Juicy
K: The King is his Cousin, Got Kib’d Heels, Knapt, Het his Kettle
L: Lordly, Light, Lappy, Limber
M: He sees two Moons, Mountous, Muddy, Rais’d his Monuments
N: He’s eat the Cocoa Nut, Nimptopsical, Got the Night Mare
O: He’s Oil’d, Smelt of an Onion, Oxycrocium, Overset
P: Priddy, Has scalt his Head Pan, Been among the Philistines, In his Prosperity
Q: He’s Quarrelsome
R: Raddled, Lost his Rudder, Been too free with Sir Richard, Like a Rat in Trouble
S: In the Sudds, Swampt, as Stiff as a Ring-bolt, Staggerish, Stew’d, Has Sold his Senses
T: Tongue-ty’d, Topsey Turvey, Has Swallow’d a Tavern Token, He’s Thawed, He’s Trammel’d
V: He makes Virginia Fence, Valiant, Got the Indian Vapours
W: He’s wise, He’s been to the Salt Water, He’s very Weary
Feel free to use your favorites this evening and tomorrow morning to describe the state of your friends, family, strangers, or even yourself. But please, don’t blame the bartender.
