These 30 Scottish Phrases All Mean "Drunk"

This article was originally published by The Influence, a news site that covers the full spectrum of human relationships with drugs. Follow The Influence on Facebook or Twitter.

Eskimos use 50 different words for “snow,” runs a much-debated cliché.  The idea behind it is that constant proximity to something alerts one to its many nuanced forms and makes it necessary to distinguish between them.

Scottish people, on the other hand, have at least 30 different terms for drunkenness, as assembled by Sofiane Kennouche at The Scotsman. Some of these (“plastered,” “rat-arsed”) are shared with the rest of the UK. Others (“pished,” “oot the game”) have small adaptations of accent. Others still (“foutered,” “minkit,” “toteroo”) are surely incomprehensible to non-Scots.

The serious side of this verbal exuberance is that Scotland—the booziest part of the boozier-than-average UK—does have some very significant alcohol-related problems. Still, it’s equally important to remember that just as most overall drug use is non-problematic, so is most Scottish drinking. And in the land that invented Laphroaig, it’s understandable if resistance is difficult.

Here are the 30 terms:

Blitzed

Tanked-up

Oot yer tree

Sloshed

Boozy kind

Minced

Buckled

Foutered

Minced

Pished

Hammered

Howlin’

Reekin’

Guttered

Oot the game

Trollied

Sozzled

Minkit

Rat-arsed

Rubbered

Steamboats

Mingin’

Slaughtered

Plastered

Sottered

Tooteroo

Wrecked

Ruined

Goosed

Tramlined

This article was originally published by The Influence, a news site that covers the full spectrum of human relationships with drugs. Follow The Influence on Facebook or Twitter.