It troubles me that I cannot restrain myself when I start typing, and wind up with absurdly large blogs. Holly von Frankenstein, you've created a monster.
Thanks for the comments, people. Denise, could you perhaps mail me Tara's address, since the one I have no longer works? Deirdre, I shall gladly meet with you for a snifter of porter or two over the Christmas... it has been too long since we sat and consumed all oxygen for miles around with our incessant word-production. Edel, thank you for the Angel explanatory notes - Hol, Jenny, Shaw and others have all told me who's who, but it has strangely gone in one ear and out the other ever time. Somehow in print it seems far more real. Which is more real, the written or the spoken word? Must read Plato's 'Phaedrus' on this one.... hmmm. I also have no idea what URL and AIM mean, I'm afraid, though I know that whenever I post a comment on somebody else's site I put the address for this one, beginning with http:// in the URL box. Maybe Diarmait can enlighten us?
Speaking of which, Diarmait, I'm not entirely sure that the 100 Best Selling Singles list was the result of prepubescent taste and purchasing power. Years ago Bill Hicks was disgusted by the admittedly short-lived primacy of Debbie Gibson and Tiffany, and wondered how much babysitting money was floating around. But the list generally didn't reflect that sort of thing, at least not at the top. Take That had only one song, the Spice Girls had two, and Will, Gareth, and Hearsay all showed their faces, but an equally impressive showing was made by soppy ballads such as 'Everything I do...', 'Love is in the Air', 'I will always love you', and 'My Heart will go on' . Grannies bought that ridiculous 'Candle in the Wind '97' while everybody bought 'Do they know it's Christmas?'. I'm not sure who bought 'Mull of Kintyre'. Former Beatles fans, I guess. And mothers.
Anyway, here's a challenge for you. You know that thing whereby eskimos allegedly have four zillion words for snow, or something? Shaw tells me it's not true, but work with me here...
Well, a couple of years ago, while perpetuating national stereotypes in an admittedly troubling way, I wondered how many words or phrases Irish people used to indicate that somebody was drunk. Lots, I guessed. Maybe twenty or thirty. I've given this matter some thought, and having taken on board suggestions from English, Scottish, Canadian, and American friends, I've come up with a list of one hundred and twenty three terms of intoxication! I'm not sure what this says about me in particular or English speakers in general, but I think you'll agree that this is an impressive list. And I suspect there are many more. So, if you have any suggestions for possible additions to my 'Drunken Thesaurus' I'd like to hear them. Stick them in the comments box.
Here's my list, in pseudo-alphabetical order:
Arseholed, Ar meisce (an Irish phrase, but one I think worth including because Irish people will on occasion throw it into an English sentence), Armchaired, Annihilated, Blotto, Buckled, Blitzed, Blasted, Bluthered (primarily Scottish, I believe), Befuddled, Blathered, Bladdered, Boosy, Bollixed, Beery, Bombed, Binned, Binnered, Badgered, Cut, Drunk, Drunk as a lord, Drunk as a skunk (really just intensifications of 'drunk' but since you can't be 'pissed as a skunk' or 'tipsy as a lord' I reckoned they were worth including), Didn’t know your own name, Destroyed, Elevated, Elephants, Fluthered, Flower-potted (always puzzles me, that one), Fuddled, Fresh, Fou (Scottish again, apparently), Fucked, Flush (probably appropriate for me, considering that I go crimson whenever I drink), Flustered, Fuzzy, Fuckfaced, Full up to the gills, Foggy, Gee-eyed, Groggy, Gone, Half-cut (I'm not sure if this merits a separate inclusion, when 'cut' is already here, but 'half-cut' is more common), Happy, Inebriated, Intoxicated, In your cups, In the bag (American, I'm told), Jolly, Locked, Lashed, Langered, Langers, Mangled, Mashed, Monged, Mellow, Muddled, Muzzy, Mortalled, Not well, Not the best, Ossified (popular among forensic archaeologists...), Out of your face, Out of your head, Out of your tree, Oiled, Obfuscated, Obliterated, Off your head, Pissed, Pissed as a fart, Pissed as a newt (see comments for 'drunk as a skunk' above), Palatic, Paralytic, Plastered, Polluted, Parkbenched, Pixilated, Puddled, Plastic, Pie-faced, Pie-eyed, Rubbered, Ratarsed, Raddled, Rotten, Scuttered, Stocious, Shitfaced, Slaughtered, Sozzled, Squiffy, Screwed, Skulled, Scuttled, Skanky, Skankers, Steaming, Steamed, Stewed, Stewed to the gills, Tipsy, Tired and emotional ( a wonderful journalistic euphemism), Trousered, Tight, Trollied, Trashed, Tanked, Tankered, The worse for wear, Twisted, Tiddly, Under the influence, Under the weather, Unwell, Upside-down behind the telly, Wankered, Wellied, Well-oiled, Well on, Wasted, Zonked....
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