Blotto

Blotto definition:  “Extremely drunk.”  dictionary.com.  Everyone knows that meaning, but may not know how it came about.  At least one source claims that the term blotto originated in British military slang during WWI, and said to be derived from the word blot, meaning that the tipster had been soaking up booze like blotting paper.  wordhistories.net.  

Literature is full of descriptive terms for a drunken person, who can take on different personalities:  A happy drunk shares laughs; a belligerent drunk threatens violence.  Both act in a way that is much different from their sober self.   

One of the earliest American studies had been undertaken in 1737 by no other than Benjamin Franklin, an occasional tipster himself.  He compiled 228 terms for drunkenness.  Not to be undone,  the Dictionary of American Slang listed 353 terms; and The American Thesaurus of Slang noted close to 900 items.  See The Vocabulary of Drunkenness by Harry Gene Devine, Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Vol 42, Number 11, page 1038 (1981)

With such an outpouring of terms and phrases for drunkenness, a detailed selection proves too much for a short post, so I will limit my list to a manageable collection of twenty favorites:

— besotted, bombed, crocked, hammered, intoxicated, 

— inebriated, loaded, looped, plastered, pickled,

— polluted, potted, sloshed, smashed, soused, 

— stewed, snockered, stoned, wasted, zonked.

Obviously, I left out a few clever terms like squiffy, tipsy, crapulent; as well as phrases like:  

— Three sheets to the wind,  Pie eyed, 

— Feeling no pain, Higher than a kite, 

— In your cups, Drunk as a skunk

— Under the influence.

In conclusion, I must provide a warning:  all this writing about over-imbibing in alcoholic beverages may lead a person to drink.

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