Bar scrawl: Can almost any word mean ‘drunk’?

How is it that ‘hammered’ can mean drunk, but so can ‘gazeboed’, ‘carparked’ and ‘pyjamaed’? Inspired by a viral joke, two German linguists break it down.

It started out as a joke that felt too accurate to ignore.

British stand-up comedian Michael McIntyre trotted out the theory, during a 2009 comedy tour at home, that almost any English word could be used to mean “very drunk”, from the familiar “hammered” to the completely random “gazeboed”, “carparked” and “toastered”.

The joke went viral on YouTube, and drew the attention of two German linguists, who got to thinking about why, exactly, this would be.

Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer (professor of