WOW #3

This week’s Word Of the Week is;

CRAPULENT

adjective
given to or resulting from intemperance
suffering from intemperance; drunken

1650-60; < Late Latin crāpulentus drunk, derivative of Latin crāpula drunkenness < Greek kraipálē drunkenness, a hangover; see -ent 

The day after I discovered ‘katzenjammer’ as a word meaning drunk, or hung over, I was amazed to find, emerging from a crossword I was solving, another word meaning the same thing.  When I looked it up, I was even more amazed to find that it was a real word, and in the language since 1650.

I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised. I read once, that the act of being, or getting, drunk, has the largest number of euphemistic equivalents.  There are more than 50 slang ways to describe it, blasted, wasted, high, snockered, blotto, etc, some a little more creative than others, so it’s only reasonable to have a list of words to describe the aftermath.

This seems more like a word coined by THC-infused Wayne and Garth, in a Wayne’s World movie, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the crap that we’re more used to.  ‘Craps’ are actually small, unidentified objects.  ‘Shooting craps’ refers to throwing the small dice.  The ancestors of John Crapper, who perfected the flush toilet for Queen Victoria, probably produced small wooden or pottery items.

As soon as the toilet appeared, people started equating ‘crapper, and crap, and crapping’ with disposing of small brown things of little value (although, that’s not what ‘crapping out’ means) – people like the pop group The Barenaked Ladies, whose mental age is frozen at about 10 (but you could tell that from the name, right?), who sing, “I could hide out under there. I just made you say under where/underwear.”

They sound as if they’re under the influence of a lot of alcohol, but it’s me who has a headache, and a queasy stomach.

Please come back again. Better words are promised   😀