The Drinker's Dictionary
The Drinker's Dictionary is a list of 228 "round-about phrases" to describe drunkenness. It was published January 6, 1737 in the Pennsylvania Gazette. The Pennsylvania Gazette publication is attributed to Benjamin Franklin and appears in his memoirs; however, a very similar wordlist appears in the New England Weekly Journal on July 6, 1736 and differences between the two suggest earlier origins by a different author. Franklin deemed drunkenness as a vice that could never be a virtue, so various terms and phrases were created to mask the inappropriateness of the act.
