Intoxerated

The Definitive Drinker’s Dictionary

Paul Dickson

Illustrations by Brian Rea

“Spanning centuries, it is both a celebration of drinking and a chronicle of the laments that come after having drunk too much.” — The NY Daily News

Intoxerated is the largest collection of synonyms for a single word ever assembled!

And what word might that be, you ask?

Drunk. Also, blitzed, roasted, whazood, stinko, and Boris Yeltsinned.

Paul Dickson — wise-guy lexicographer and Guinness Book of World Records champ for “Most Synonyms” — breaks his own world record with 2,985 synonyms for various states of intoxication.

A parlor game for more than 200 years, creating ever-expanding lists of synonyms for being tipsy has been a pursuit of the literary set since Benjamin Franklin first assembled his Drinker’s Dictionary in 1735. He was followed by no less than Tom Paine, Charles Dickens, H.L. Mencken, and Langston Hughes.

This definitive compendium is extensively annotated—full of off-beat explanations, like how the word “blotto” moved from the lips of P.G. Wodehouse, into the writings of Edmund Wilson, finally landing with Otto from The Simpsons (“My name is Otto, I like to get blotto”).

Intoxerated celebrates the stunning variety and expressiveness of English, and our infinite ability to invent.

PAUL DICKSON is the author of more than 45 nonfiction books and hundreds of magazine articles. Although he has written on a variety of subjects from ice cream to kite flying to electronic warfare, he now concentrates on writing about the American language, baseball and 20th century history. His most recent titles include The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, Sputnik: The Shock of the Centuryand Slang: A Topical Dictionary of Americanisms.

BRIAN REA is a Los Angeles-based illustrator and former art director for the Op-Ed page of the New York Times. He enjoys bourbon on ice and has been seen along the rail at the Worthen in Lowell, MA, Chez Jay in Santa Monica, CA and Heathers in New York City.

“A splendid new book.” —Ben Schott, The New York Times

“Where else could we learn that 30 years after the term plastered entered the drunk lexicon, the Arizona Lath and Plaster Institute would protest the use of the term?” —Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times

“Is it a worthy book for anybody who likes food or wine (or beer or cocktails)? Absolutely. Because reading through these definitions, accompanied by Brian Rea’s charming drawings, is so immensely pleasurable that it’s intoxicating. Just like the title suggests.” —Time Out Chicago

“Dickson has done it again, entrancing those who want to eavesdrop on the slanguage of everyone from barista to bitheads.” —Erin McKean, American lexicographer and editor of Verbatim: The Language Quarterly

“With focus, a passion for language, and a world-class ear, Dickson has produced brilliant chapter after brilliant chapter, any one of which would be a lifetime achievement for most lexicographers.” —Tom Dalzell, senior editor of The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English