Hubby & I spent the first several years of our marriage abroad due to his military posting to England. Any Yank (American) who's ever watched Monty Python or other "Brit-Coms" on PBS (e.g. "Are You Being Served," "Keeping Up Appearances") knows they speak a very different language from ours, though both Americans & Brits CLAIM to speak "English!" On that note, I will allude to the op-ed piece I read on line in the first New York Times of 2009; one written by a British expat living in Spain describing his post-Christmas Eve hangover & his difficulty in trying to describe to a Spanish neighbor that he was "squiffy." (!?) In three years over there, how'd I ever miss that rather cool-sounding adjective? Perhaps people were avoiding its use due to the "Squidgygate" scandal then swirling around the Princess of Wales? Or did the term originate in a region of Britain other than the Anglian fens where we lived?
Icing on the cake, the gentleman went on to allude to the glorious history of colloquialisms used in English (both dialects) to describe inebriation. Equally entertaining were the posts in response to this op-ed sharing lingo the author HADN'T cited! One the author DID cite (& attributed to Benjamin Franklin's 1736 Drinker's Dictionary) was "nimptopsical." That's an odd one, the etymology of which I won't even attempt to explore! Another he cited dates from the days of Prohibition: "zozzled." (How 1920s--sounds like something my great aunt would've said!) Then there's a term a friend of my husband coined during our college years: "oblivionated." (I seem to recall she coined it WHILE under the influence, though after 25 years my memory may be faulty on this point.)
In closing, let me share a lovely limerick posted by one of many commenters on the op-ed:
It was only last September, as close as I remember,
I was walking down the street with manly pride.
When my heart began to flutter and I fell into the gutter,
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
I was bruised and badly shaken, but when my thoughts began to waken,
A lady standing by was heard to say,
”You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses.”
So the pig got up and slowly walked away.— G. Purnell
Happy New Year & may it be a healthy one for all!
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