Paul Dickson: Drunk Writer

PAUL DICKSON KNOWS A THING OR TWO ABOUT BEING DRUNK.

He knows the difference between being “blotto” and simply being “in the weeds”.

He’s run the gamut from “Feng schwasted” to “eating dirt”.

No, he hasn’t actually been that drunk… at least, not as far as Web Watch is aware of… but Paul Dickson can say that he has written the authoritative book on the subject with DRUNK: THE DEFINITIVE DICTIONARY, listing 2,964 different terms for being wasted out of your mind on wine, beer, or liquor.

When Web Watch last ran across one of Mr Dickson’s books, it was FAMILY WORDS, a guide to all those unique words and phrases that exist only within a family unit.  With his other books covering the likes of baseball phrases, American slang, and war-related slang, writing about all the different ways we have to say that someone was more than tipsy was a relatively easy task.

Let’s see how many Web Watch can name in 10 seconds:

• buzzed
• wasted
• faced
• totally gone  (heck, anything with “totally” probably qualifies)
• passed-out
• got the head machinery going

The question is – how many of those drunk definitions can YOU name off the top of your head… and how many drunk phrases do you know that didn’t make it into this edition?  Web Watch smells volume 2 in Mr Dickson’s future.