There ’s a lot of slang associated with drinking . Three sheet to the fart . Hair of the Canis familiaris . On the paddy wagon . We all bang them , we all expend them , but most of us do n’t know where they follow from or what they really intend . interpret on , and you ’ll be the smart person at the bar .
It ’s Friday afternoon , you ’ve made it through the prospicient hebdomad , and it ’s clip forHappy Hour , Gizmodo ’s hebdomadary booze column . A cocktail mover and shaker full of excogitation , science , and alcoholic drink . “ ward , wards , Ward . ” -Drunk Hamlet
Booze
As long as we ’re talking about booze , why not start with booze ? Theword first appearedin Middle Dutch , right smart back in the 1300s , as bûsen , which mean “ to drink to excess . ” There was also the Old High German word bausen , which meant “ to bulge or billow . ” These may have been born out of buise ( Dutch ) , mean a prominent drinking vessel . The password made its way over to Middle English in the 1500s as both a verb ( to drink ) and a noun ( to drink some John Barleycorn ) . It was n’t until the 1700s that it was spelled phonetically , as we do today .
Some people think the intelligence derive from a Philadelphia distiller in the 1800s name E.G. Booz . These people are incorrect , and now you’re able to shame them . seek to be nice about it .
Hangover
According tothe Online Etymology Dictionary , the first document use of hangover ( or hang - over ) was in 1894 , and it have in mind “ a selection , a thing left over from before . ” That sounds about right . The alcohol ( or alcohol illness ) hang over from the night before . Get it ?
Tie One On
This is an rum one , and the exact definition is the subject of some debate . There’ssome consensus , though , that the “ one ” being tied on refers to a roll . “ Tie one on ” is an abbreviated translation of the British expression “ link a roll on . ” Indeed , for a hundred years or so before the seventies , “ a bun ” was slang for getting intoxicated . The problem is that nobody knows how buns got into the equation in the first plaza .
The best theory going is that it was a part of an honest-to-goodness school sobriety test . As in , “ Walk while equilibrize this bun on your mind to prove you ’re unplayful . ” If the someone was really inebriated , they ’d have to “ tie a roll on ” for pass the trial . Which , as far as sobriety tests go , sounds somewhat hilarious .
Three Sheets to the Wind
There are two schools of cerebration on here . Themore popular origination storyis that it ’s a seafaring term . The plane is n’t the sheet itself ( as sailor boy know ) , but rather it ’s the rope that controls the trim of the sail . If all three sheets ( on a three - sail articulated lorry ) are released and allow to go slack , the sail will point , intend they ’ll roll about sloppily , the boat will lose speed , and hence keep in line . Kinda like a drunk somebody .
“ To the wind ” does n’t make a ton of sense in this instance , but it seems that the saying may have evolved from “ three sheets in the flatus , ” which is dependable . And that confusion is somewhat easily explained by the fact that it ’s intoxicated the great unwashed saying it .
Thesecond origin storymakes a little more sense . This go back to the days of Dutch windmills . The manufactory mostly had four blades that were really just soma . They did n’t catch much wind on their own , but when a miller wanted to moil grain he would put material over the frames of the blades , so that the confidential information would impel them . They could put sheets on two opposing brand ( if the tip was strong ) or on all four blade ( if the jazz was weak ) and have a nice proportion . However , if the Arthur Miller only got three sheets on before it started spinning , it would be lopsided . As the unbalanced blades spin it would cause the total grind to sway back and forth , much like drunk person .
This explains why it ’s almost always “ three sheets . ” That say , “ two sheets ” is thefirst sleep with written appearance ( 1815 ) .
Groggy
Did n’t know that was abooze - specific watchword , didja ? Grog was a deglutition the British navy consumed in the 1700s . Generally it was rum watered down with water or beer . fuddle too much of it at night , and you wake up all stock and out of it , or groggy . It was , essentially , a synonym for hangover .
On the Wagon
This is an super contentious one . There ’s been an e-mail circulating for the last few years that claims it has something to do with ye olde British captive being allowed one last beverage before being carted off ( in a wagon ) to the gallows . This is completelybogus . The phrase is also frequently ( and incorrectly ) assign to the work of the Salvation Army ( which would round out up New York City drunk on a Dipper and bring them to “ salvation ” ) , but the write usage pre - go steady that work . While the factual definition is still the subject field of debate , the origin story with the most support is as observe .
Thefirst compose recordof the phrase was in 1901 in Alice Caldwell Rice ’s Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch . in reality , it was the British variation of the musical phrase “ on the water go-cart . ” The quotation in question : “ I wanted to git him some whiskey , but he shuck his forefront . ‘ I ’m on the body of water - cart , ” in a nod to the temperance trend .
The pee handcart was a wagon that was dragged down dirt route in rural towns , spray water system , and thus keeping the rubble down . Men to declare they were on the estate car ( “ wagon ” was replace for “ pushcart ” ) , promised that they were sticking to water system from now on ( or , possibly , that they vowed they would rather wassail nasty horse - go-cart piddle than drink booze ) . When they “ fall off the Wain ” it stand for they had slipped and gone back to their quondam boozin ’ ways .
Hair of the Dog
This onemakes more sensein the context of the full version : “ hair of the cad that bit you . ” It touch on to drinking a snatch of booze in the good morning to relieve the withdrawal symptoms associated with a katzenjammer . We’ve certainly seen weirder cure . First document usance seems to be from John Heywood ’s 1546 text A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in upshot of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue :
The World ’s 19 Weirdest Hangover remedy
I implore thee let me and my swain haveA fuzz of the dog that bit us last dark – And bitten were we both to the brain aright . We saw each other drunk in the adept ale glass .
It ’s a nod to a practice that dates back to Medieval times , when a person sting by a rabid dog was apprise to treat the wound by prune off a piece of the Canis familiaris ’s hair enforce some of that hotdog ’s hair to the wound . Side note of hand : A lot of people die of rabies .
Crunk
The youngest Word of God on this list , crunk first arrived in the early - to - mid nineties . Not surprisingly , there are several competing definitions . First , crunk may be used to report a style of high - energy pelvis - record hop medicine originating from the southern United States ( particularly Atlanta and Memphis ) . It ’s got a distinctive guild sound and usually has double ( shouted ) lyrics .
The other potential lineage is thatit ’s a portmanteauof the Son “ crazy ” and “ intoxicated . ” As with the medicine , it ’s typically associated with a high - energy form of drunk . Some associate drugs and hard drink being consumed at the same time ( i.e. chronic and drunk , coke up and drunk , etc ) . First usage in pop refinement seems to be Outkast in 1993 in their strain “ Player ’s clump , ” though you ’d be severely - pressed to deduce a definition from its utilisation . Conan O’Brien also used it as a catch - all nonsense swearword on his show starting in 1993 , but that ’s most likely a coincidence .
Hooch
It was , as you might ahve guessed , exceedingly nasty , but also chinchy and extremely powerful . The Hoochinoos became celebrated for it , and the product became known among Americans as “ hooch . ” The full term came back into vogue amongst illegal distiller during ban in the 1920s and stay on in circulation to this Clarence Day .
Blotto
This Britishism first showed up in the early 1900s , and it ’s afairly easy oneto suggestion . It mean “ extremely intoxicated , ” typically to the distributor point of blacken out . We live that blotto derive from the word spot , but there things get a minuscule tricker , as stain has several definitions . Some think it ’s because to spot can mean “ to inebriate up a liquid state , ” which emphatically makes sense , but there another definition that may be even more relation . you may efface something by “ blotting it out , ” which is essentially what you ’re doing to your store when youget amnesia drunk .
What Happens To Your mastermind When You Get Black - Out rummy ?
Sh*t-Faced
woefully , the origins of this one are muddy . It seems cleared that it began as a general vilification , and was n’t of necessity connect with imbibition . In fact it ’s possibly a maneuver off of the Scotch expression “ chit - faced , ” which has the same root as outfit and kitten . It in the main meant someone with a small face , as in a kid or a young animal , and was n’t typically an insult .
The O.E.D. impute the first example of it being used to intend drunkenness to Alan Ginsburg in his 1961 Holy Scripture Empty Mirror ( though , asSlate point out , that seems a bit late ) . There may be some base for it though ; it was around that time that it began gaining popularity among the college crowd .
Leathered to the Jimmys
Nah , just josh . That one ’s not real . But it should be .
There are , of grade , many dozens of others . If you have a favorite one , please help expound the lean in the discussion below ( do n’t forget to refer your sources ) . We ’ll see you next week for anotherHappy Hour , when we ’ll all get leathered to the jemmy .
[ UPDATE : Leathered to the Jimmys is on its means to becoming a real thing ! You canupvote it here at Urban Dictionary , and you cansee it in activity in this awesome 1 - minute animated filmmade by readerKlas Holmlund . squad # leatheredtothejimmys ]
[ Oxford Journals , Online Etymology Dictionary , Random House , The Phrase Finder , NY Times , Brain Pickings , Random House , The Phrase Finder , Rap Basement , Culinary Lore , Oxford Dictionaries , Slate ]
Image acknowledgment : Shutterstock / John Goldstein
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