Drunk: The Definitive Drinker's Dictionary

by Paul Dickson

Here it is: from a Guinness World Records holder, the most English synonyms ever recorded for a single word--"drunk." Wise-guy lexicographer Paul Dickson, a consulting editor at Merriam-Webster , has... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933633751
• ISBN13: 9781933633756
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: Melville House Publishing
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

drunk on words

What a terrifically fun book. Technically I suppose it's a thesaurus for one word -- drunk -- but it felt more like a fascinating and hilarious chat with a new friend about how sometimes we find witty ways to avoid saying a thing, and other times we find startling ways to say it better. Nothing like a touchy subject -- boozing, war, religion, politics -- to bring that about. There's actually a nice lesson to learn here as such. Regardless, a lovely book that rewards you no matter what page you open to. Fantastically funny illustrations, too.

It's about our hysterical language!

This is a really wonderful book about our wonderful language -- how creative it is, how funny, how much room it gives the imagination. To say it's in any way supporting drunkenness is just not true. It's like saying that discussing odd synonyms for war is promoting war. That's obviously not true. But that's also not as much fun as discussing synonyms for drunk!

EAT, DRINK (NOT TOO MUCH) AND BE MERRY: READ, LEARN AND ENJOY.

Did you ever have a teacher who made it fun to learn: a teacher who passed along knowledge and insight in a way that you wished ever teacher could/would? Sadly, teachers like that are a rare breed, but they do exist, and when you have the good fortune to come across one, it's a delight (as anyone who has had such a teacher knows full well). In any case, that's what comes to mind when you peruse Paul Dickson's latest contribution to the literature of lexicography: "Drunk". Paul's like that teacher whose classes you actually look forward to, whose classes you would never even dream of cutting. By compiling the seemingly endless euphemisms, surrogate words and phrases for perhaps the most human of all human conditions, Paul brings into focus and amply illustrates the wonderful richness of language - the endless capacity of humans to express themselves - and he does so in the most entertaining (and quite comprehensive) manner imaginable. Simply put, there's a lot to learn - and laugh about - in this latest tome by perhaps the most prolific and astute author putting pen to ink to paper these days, and although the rather straight-forward title may not impart the full width and depth of what can be found between the covers, "Drunk" is a wonderful book that everyone who reads it will enjoy and learn from (on many levels) be they drunk, sober, or somewhere in-between.