Gonna get downright MetaFiltered tonight

April 6, 2024 11:20 AM

The English language is famous for its large number of drunkonyms, i.e. words that can be used to refer to the state of drunkenness – from blind and hammered to pissed, smashed and wasted. Various lists of words have been compiled in the past (e.g. Levine 1981). However, most of the terms seem to be relatively infrequent, and they also appear to fall out of use relatively quickly. In view of Michael McIntyre’s (2009) claim that it is possible to use any word to mean ‘drunk’ in English, this contribution therefore approaches the issue from a constructionist perspective. In a corpus-based study, we tested whether it is possible to model the expression of drunkenness in English as a more or less schematic (set of) construction(s). Our study shows that while corpus evidence for truly creative uses is scarce, we can nonetheless identify constructional and collostructional properties shared by certain patterns that are used to express drunkenness in English. For instance, the pattern be/get + ADV + drunkonym is strongly associated with premodifying (and often strongly intensifying) adverbs such as completely, totally and absolutely. A manual analysis of a large wordlist of English drunkonyms reveals further interesting patterns that can be modelled constructionally.

“I’m gonna get totally and utterly X-ed.” Constructing drunkenness, a spirited academic paper from the Yearbook of the GCLA

Can any English word be turned into a synonym for “drunk”? Not all, but many can.

Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer of Chemnitz University of Technology and Peter Uhrig of FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg decided to draw on their expertise to test McIntyre's claim that any word in the English language could be modified to mean "being in a state of high inebriation." Given their prevalence, "It is highly surprising that drunkonyms are still under-researched from a linguistic perspective," the authors wrote in their new paper published in the Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association. Bonus: the authors included an extensive appendix of 546 English synonyms for "drunk," drawn from various sources, which makes for entertaining reading.

It's not a new concept, as shown by Benjamin Franklin's 1737 "Drinker's Dictionary":

But ᴅʀᴜɴᴋᴇɴɴᴇꜱꜱ is a very unfortunate Vice in this respect. It bears no kind of Similitude with any sort of Virtue, from which it might possibly borrow a Name; and is therefore reduc’d to the wretched Necessity of being express’d by distant round-about Phrases, and of perpetually varying those Phrases, as often as they come to be well understood to signify plainly that ᴀ ᴍᴀɴ ɪꜱ ᴅʀᴜɴᴋ.

Tho’ every one may possibly recollect a Dozen at least of the Expressions us’d on this Occasion, yet I think no one who has not much frequented Taverns would imagine the number of them so great as it really is.

...followed by a delightful list of period slang including:

"Drunk as a Wheelbarrow"
"Dizzy as a Goose"
"Ate a Toad and half for Breakfast"
"Been to France"
"Head is full of Bees"
"Seen a Flock of Moons"
"Been too free with Sir John Strawberry"

The BBC's Susie Dent estimated that there are over 3,000 English words for being drunk:

The concoctions those knights dispensed fill an even richer lexicon, veering from the euphemistic ‘tiger’s milk’ to the blatant invitation of ‘strip-me-naked’. Add those to the 3,000 words English currently holds for the state of being drunk (including ‘ramsquaddled’, ‘obfusticated’, ‘tight as a tick’, and the curious ‘been too free with Sir Richard’) and you’ll find that the only subjects that fill the pages of English slang more are money and sex.

See also: The Drunktionary, discussed previously on MeFi

posted by Rhaomi (49 comments total)

Hey, are you the Edmund Fitzgerald? Because you wrecked
posted by credulous at 11:34 AM on April 6 [17 favorites]

I'm gonna get completely metafiltered after reading the links.
posted by lalochezia at 11:53 AM on April 6 [6 favorites]

Got totally autocorrupted.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:05 PM on April 6 [8 favorites]

I'm getting completely semantically deconstructed tonight.
posted by biogeo at 12:21 PM on April 6 [5 favorites]

I'm gonna get completely metafiltered after reading the links.

My best friend is coming over tonight and we’re gonna get totally beanplated.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:58 PM on April 6 [8 favorites]

Overdrinking a plate of booze
posted by chavenet at 1:29 PM on April 6 [10 favorites]

lit, gone, raked, claused, ferment, gills, bones, ass, grassed, ozone, pachyderm, cheeseburger, buffed, tanked, frittered, brooked, baked, steamed, crisped, Jai alai'd,
adjusted, pressed, steamed, sauted, fucked up. shit faced, glazed, rolled.

High as a kite.
posted by clavdivs at 1:33 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

Got totally autocorrupted.
posted by wenestvedt at 3:05 PM on April 6 [1 favorite −] Favorite added! [⚑]


The above might be the greatest comment ever posted.
posted by Thistledown at 2:03 PM on April 6 [2 favorites]

I am so forked. But wait, I'm not done!
posted by y2karl at 2:25 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

I plan to get smothered, covered, chunked, diced, peppered, and capped in celebration of this post.

(But not topped, that's not my thing.)
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:35 PM on April 6 [3 favorites]

plowing towards poughed.
posted by clavdivs at 2:40 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

I got schnockered at MetaFilter ‘24
posted by hototogisu at 2:45 PM on April 6

I plan to celebrate commenting on all the comments by getting totally moderated.
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 2:52 PM on April 6 [10 favorites]

I'm taking it to MeTa tonight.
posted by mollweide at 3:00 PM on April 6 [4 favorites]

I'm getting flagged, so move on.
posted by OHenryPacey at 3:05 PM on April 6 [9 favorites]

I admit I've always been fond of the evocativeness of "three sheets to the wind."
posted by mollweide at 3:22 PM on April 6 [2 favorites]

Mark, Jeff, and Elon got completely enshittified.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 3:25 PM on April 6 [4 favorites]

ive always really enjoyed "munted"
posted by _earwig_ at 3:46 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

The whole thread is positively polyestered.
posted by effluvia at 3:49 PM on April 6 [2 favorites]

As far as I understand it, 'He's totally/completely/absolutely (xyzed)' = he's drunk, but 'He's a total/complete/absolute (xyz)' = he's a not very nice person.

He's utterly floorbooarded, he's completely sandwiched, he's totally lamped, he's completely frogged.

He's just a complete bookshelf, he's a total cushion, he's an absolute road to Rawtenstall.
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 3:57 PM on April 6 [13 favorites]

You're gonna get Christed so hard.
posted by symbioid at 4:14 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

Aren't these just the lyrics to One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer.
posted by symbioid at 4:15 PM on April 6 [4 favorites]

Drunk -> very drunk -> extremely drunk -> Rugby League Drunk
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:25 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

Mark, Jeff, and Elon got completely enshittified.

But they call it whatever the billionaires do to make it sound like they're not getting fucked up higher than their asses. Can you even microdose ketamine?
posted by mollweide at 4:29 PM on April 6

I got moderated so hard last night, bro. I was almost banhammered.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:34 PM on April 6 [16 favorites]

banhammered.

Stop the thread, we have a winner.
posted by briank at 4:53 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

"Feelin' no pain."

Both figuratively and literally...
posted by jim in austin at 5:09 PM on April 6

"Banhammered in the butt by those metafilter mods..."

By Dr Chuck Tingle, (ok made that up)
posted by Windopaene at 5:11 PM on April 6 [8 favorites]

i got so pottered last night i ended up rowling all over the floor
posted by logicpunk at 5:25 PM on April 6 [8 favorites]

i got so pottered last night i ended up rowling all over the floor

i got so hammered last night i ended up MC-ing
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 5:45 PM on April 6 [4 favorites]

It's like the inverse to the the word dude which can sub for hundreds of words and even complete sentences.
posted by Mitheral at 6:10 PM on April 6 [2 favorites]

But "I got duded last night" means something very different.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:13 PM on April 6 [2 favorites]

Don't know if it's covered in the literature, but "I'm going to get completely and thoroughly sober tonight" probably wouldn't convince anybody that you plan to spend the evening getting unimaginably splacked.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 6:16 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

d̸r̶i̸n̷k̴ ̴w̷i̶t̵h̷ ̵m̷o̴d̸e̴r̴a̵t̸i̴o̵n̵
posted by clavdivs at 6:44 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

Another toast, to moderation!
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:49 PM on April 6 [2 favorites]

Is it “I got crouton petted so hard” or “i got my crouton petted so hard” ? Do those two even mean the same thing?
posted by ActionPopulated at 6:54 PM on April 6 [2 favorites]

I'm particularly fond of a Glaswegian stage of being drunk: miraculous. It's where the person described is drunk enough to have reached the exaggeratedly garrulous, wide-gesturing stage. It can be a passing moment, somewhere around steaming but short of hammered. It can be truly miraculous to witness, too.
posted by scruss at 7:10 PM on April 6 [7 favorites]

It's where the person described is drunk enough to have reached the exaggeratedly garrulous, wide-gesturing stage.

Elmer Gantried.
posted by Literaryhero at 8:20 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

I'm my head over you drinking people. Me, I'm sipping my late-night smoothie, totally blendered.
posted by SPrintF at 8:25 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

Somewhat related: some of my high school friends used "bored" in place of "stoned" so their parents (presumably) wouldn't know what they were talking about.

"Jeff and John came over last night and we got soooooo bored. I've never been so bored before in my entire life!" Etc.
posted by DrumsIntheDeep at 8:28 PM on April 6 [2 favorites]

Currently more sloshed than a pirate boat, happy to be a mefite.
posted by lock robster at 8:36 PM on April 6

Got favorited at a bourbon fest today... this thread is amusing.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 8:49 PM on April 6 [2 favorites]

I'm so bored you could call me plywood.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:49 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

M. C. Hammered?

If we’re not careful this might develop into a case of Letterkenny

(I got pitter-pattered tonight)
posted by device55 at 10:18 PM on April 6

Well this saves me making an AskMe - where's that meme I saw on twitter however many years ago that had the list of adjectives with a variety of meanings in AmE that all meant "drunk" in BrE?
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 10:42 PM on April 6

I just want to take an extra beat to appreciate the construction: "Seen a Flock of Moons"
posted by chromecow at 1:29 AM on April 7 [2 favorites]

I'm sorry to see that Private Eye's "tired and emotional" didn't make the cut. But not surprised that there's lots of Hiberno-English in the list.
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:27 AM on April 7 [1 favorite]

Some Australian English as well with 'maggoted' - interestingly in terms of this paper the last syllable is usually elided so people are just 'maggot' ("he was maggot" = "he was extremely drunk").
posted by goo at 5:01 PM on April 7

I would swear this had been previouslied, so I may have been previouslied (in the blackout/deleted state).
posted by k3ninho at 11:00 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]