The vocabulary of drunkenness.

HE DITORS of the Dictionary o] American Slang (1, p. 652) report that "the concept having the most slang synonyms is drunk." The Dictionary lists 353 terms, with more added in the Appendix. In 1737 Benjamin Franklin compiled a list of 228 terms for being drunk (2). The American Thesaurus o] Slang (3) lists dose to 900 terms. 3 Obviously, Americans, like many other peoples of the world, have taken being drunk very seriously. Alcohol researchers, however, have not--they have never seriously examined normal, ordinary, nonpathological drunkenness: the drunkenness of parties and celebrations, of beginnings and endings, and of mourning. The various words for drunk are data on the meaning of drunkenness in American culture, and the interpretations of items appear to be wide open. 4 It is striking that so many of the American synonyms of drunk suggest some kind of power, force or violence, often used to de-