Here's a question: if the eskimos have many words for 'snow', so much is their world dominated by the white stuff, how many phrases would the British have for getting drunk on the 'hard stuff'?
The answer? Hundreds, probably. After all, they have liked getting drunk for centuries; licensing laws from the first world war, with shortened hours to stop armaments workers crying off work with hangovers have only just been reversed, and part of the unpopularity of Britain in the puritanical American colonies was its drunken 'redcoats' (if you ever ventured into a Wan Chai pub where the Black Watch were drinking you would sympathise). Hogarth's fabled print of the depravities of Gin Lane, depicting all manner of public drunkenness and lewd London behaviour, was etched in 1751.
Mark Hastings, spokesman for the British Beer and Pub Association, says there is even a theory that King Harold II lost the Battle of Hastings in 1066 because his army drank too much mead the night before while the Normans gently sipped claret with their beef bourgignon.
When it comes to drinking to get drunk, the British have form. This is borne out in the plentiful idioms and euphemisms. Linguists may note, however, that such phrases are more numerous and harder in tone, reflecting the changing nature of British drunkenness, not just at home but abroad - be it the stag party capitals of northern Europe or Mediterranean beach resorts.
The older generation understated insobriety, using 'jolly', 'squiffy' or 'merry' to denote intoxication. If they were 'three sheets to the wind' they might admit being 'well oiled' or 'toes up'. Getting drunk when young was a rite of passage. but you didn't brag. Getting stupidly drunk was taboo.
No longer. Some younger Britons still couch their antics with understatement, saying they had been over-refreshed, tired and emotional, full of loudmouth soap, or 'jober as a sudge', but most are less circumspect. They boast of getting 'ratted', 'trolleyed', 'mullered', 'banjoed' (as if hit by the instrument), 'spanked' or 'plastered'.