Anthony Blackburn: I’m Drunk…In so Many Words


Sometimes, my Cultural Appreciation of Wine class, at Napa Valley College, takes a turn for the interesting.

As a matter of fact, with instructor Paul Wagner at the helm, it seems to take the scholastic course of driving down Lombard Street in San Francisco. Once we get going one way, we take a turn for the interesting in another direction.

Tonight’s direction was slang for drunk. Or inebriated. Or wasted.

We found out, as a class, there are a lot of different ways to express one’s level of alcohol intake. Paul asked us to come up with as many different euphemisms as we could, for being tanked…er…shot….er….plastered. Well, you get the idea, don’t you?

Paul proceeded to write on the chalk board, as we, as a class, called out..

Drunk
Plastered
Faded
Inebriated
Shit Faced
Intoxicated
A Hot Mess
Crocked
Under The table
Polluted
Snockered
Tied One On
Wasted
Smashed
Pissed
Lit
Loaded
Hammered
Under The Bar
Twisted
Sloshed
Crunk
Half Baked
Tipsy
Toasted
Three Sheets To The Wind
Hurtin’
In His Cup
Feeling No Pain
Loopy
Damn Fool
In La la land
Bombed
911
Boozy
Well Done
Poached
Slammed
Messed Up
Wiped Out
Off Her Tits
Tits Up
Off His Head
Off His Rocker
Liquored Up
Whiskey bent
Buzzed
Trashed
Glazed Over
Pie Eyed
Tanked
Saturated
Blacked Out
Over Indulged
Bent
Ferschnickered
DTS
Wrecked
Happy
Merry
Monkey Assed
Toe Up
Cooked
Hooched
Gone
Blasted
Swivel Necked
Laced
Puckered
Blitzed
Pickled
Blotto
Ripped
Fucked Up
Sauced
Tore Up
In Rare Form

and finally…..

“Seeing Pink Elephants”

This list is what we came up with in about 15 minutes. There are hundreds more. Paul then asked us to come up with another “state of being” that has as many descriptors. We couldn’t think of any. Paul likened it to wine and how many descriptors there are of wine. Read any wine review and there occasionally appears a level of creativity on the part of the writer in describing a particular aspect of a wine in which one would be hard pressed to find an equivalency in other areas of media.

So the next time you see a wine descriptor that seems a bit far fetched, like “Horse Blanket”, “as oakey as a box of #2 pencils” or “Hints faintly of the inside of a walnut shell”, take a moment to consider all of the euphemisms you may be described with, if you have too much of that interestingly described wine.

And don’t forget to add to this list in the comment section of this here blog.
Anthony Blackburn is a student at Napa Valley College in the Viticulture and Winery Technology Department. He is also the Student Sales and Marketing Intern responsible for selling the wines made by the students in the student winery. www.napavalley.edu/winery

3 thoughts on “Anthony Blackburn: I’m Drunk…In so Many Words

  1. As a linguist, I'm in bliss.

    Here's the follow-up experiment though.

    Do the same thing in another class, not one about wine. Would adult students of, say, calculus come up with a list as long?

    :))

    mike h.

  2. If you're drunk and can still do calculus, you're not drunk enough!

    Loved the list! English major, you know…

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