50 Words for Drunk

What our vocabulary for inebriation reveals

In his 1983 book Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, class theorist Paul Fussell makes the provocative and entertaining claim that in America, you can determine someone’s social class by how they talk about sex. According to Fussell, the lower down the social ladder, the more direct and unvarnished the language tends to be, while higher-status speakers avoid bluntness by relying on euphemism, indirection, and at times elaborate metaphor. For instance, where one speaker might say “they had sex,” another might opt for “they slept together,” while someone more status-conscious might gesture toward “they became intimate” — and, at the furthest reaches of absurdity, one might hear that the pair “found themselves momentarily entwined in a private convergence of affections,” or “drifted into a shared atmosphere of mutual regard,” phrases so decorous they seem determined to float several feet above the fact itself.

I first became aware of Fussell’s theory several years ago when I was living in America, and when I moved to St Andrews, I was surprised at how well it seemed to apply here — not only for sex, but for the way people talk about drunkenness. My time in Aikman’s Bar & Bistro has revealed just how expansive the vocabulary that people here use for their inebriation can be, as I’ve eavesdropped on St Andrews University Conservative and Unionist Association (StAUCA) socials, but also the varied types of Aikman’s clientele. I’ve noticed the StAUCA lot (a group known for their privilege) seems to use the most concrete metaphors, such as “well-lubricated” and having had “one over the eight,” which carry with them a faint air of inherited etiquette, as though intoxication is being acknowledged but carefully kept at arm’s length. Even in excess, the language retains a kind of composure.

By contrast, one young man, who I became acquainted with because he’d once been in a street fight with my friend, told me about the myriad of words he’d learned in his time drinking in various pubs around Scotland, such as, “wazzed, blootered, wankered, mullered, gazeboed, and shoelaced,” each delivered with the confidence of a man who had not only experienced these states, but catalogued them. Placed alongside the more carefully moderated idioms of the StAUCA set, this begins to suggest a contrast that looks almost too tidy to be real, as if Fussell’s theory had been lifted wholesale and dropped into a Fife pub. The temptation is to read it as a simple opposition, but even a brief exposure to the social life of a university town complicates that picture. The fact is, class is such a nebulous and uncomfortable topic that it rarely announces itself in anything as clean as vocabulary alone. Language, after all, is rarely a fixed reflection of identity; it is more often a tool that shapeshifts depending on who is listening, where one is speaking, and what kind of self one is trying to project. The same person who might claim to have been “absolutely steaming” on a Wednesday night could, by Friday brunch, insist that they were merely “a touch worse for wear.” Likewise, those who favour “well-lubricated” in public could, a few moments later, admit to being “battered.” The categories bleed into one another; the performance slips. 

There is also, perhaps, an element of defensiveness built into these euphemisms. To say one “had a few” or was “a touch worse for wear” softens the edges of excess; it renders something potentially embarrassing into something sounding charming. The more elaborate the phrasing, the more it seems to insist that nothing so vulgar as simple drunkenness has occurred. One has not lost control; one has merely, temporarily, entered into a “shared atmosphere of mutual regard” with a few pints of La Chouffe. 

What all of this suggests is that the language of intoxication, like the language of sex, offers a small but telling window into how people navigate status, self-presentation, and social comfort. Whether one is “cronked” or “four sheets to the wind,” “merry” or “with the fairies,” the choice is never entirely neutral. It reveals, if not exactly where one stands, then at least where one thinks one stands, or where one would quite like to be seen standing, ideally with a drink in hand and just enough linguistic distance to make the whole thing seem intentional.

Illustration from Artvee