Are you ‘trolleyed’, ‘wellied’ or ‘steampigged’?
These just mean you’re drunk – and there are more than 500 other words that formally mean the same thing.
A study in Germany has found there are 546 words which mean drunk, including ‘gazeboed’, ‘carparked’ or completely ‘cabbaged’.
The researchers, led by Professor Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer of Chemnitz University, have discovered that virtually any noun can be transformed into a ‘drunkonym’ simply by adding ‘ed’ at the end.
The team believe this could be because of Britain’s deeply-rooted culture of social drinking and quirky sense of humour.
Researchers have found that Britons have 546 words for drunk and that almost any word can be used so long as it ends with an ‘-ed’
If you’ve ever felt ‘gazeboed’, ‘carparked’ or completely ‘cabbaged’ after a night out, this may come as no surprise. Linguistic researchers have discovered that virtually any noun can be transformed into a ‘drunkonym’ – a synonym for intoxicated – simply by adding ‘ed’ at the end (stock image)
Prof Sanchez-Stockhammer said: ‘In English, there’s an extremely large number of words that can mean drunk, and more can be formed simply by adding ‘ed’ to the end.
‘It means pretty much any word in Britain can inherit the meaning ‘drunk’ automatically from the context.
‘This humorous modifying of words is only possible because of the way sentences are constructed in English, and because the British really enjoy witty wordplay. For example, it would not work in German.’
She added that the funny effect of drunkonyms is often achieved through their indirectness, saying: ‘For example, ‘gazeboed’ and ‘carparked’ are funny because there is no direct relation between the base word and the meaning ‘drunk’.’
The study, published in the Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association, found that English speakers regularly use a range of alternative words for ‘drunk’.
But how many of the words do you know – and is your favourite on the list? Read on to find out…
