1. Put the tent up as soon as you arrive
The biggest dilemma you face is not where to pitch the tent, but whether to crack your first beer before you do. I camp most often with a group of friends, and the temptation to leave the practicalities for later and throw ourselves down on a rug for a few drinks and a chinwag is a powerful one. On no account give in to this urge. As anyone who has tried to follow small-print Decathlon instructions in the dark while squiffy can confirm, it is always an error. Remembering which poles go in which slots first is hard at the best of times, so delay the fun until you are fully erect, so to speak.
That's written by a woman, by the way, Gemma Bowes. I don't think a male would indulge in such low humor, but I'm leaving it in my excerpt, having copied it and encountered it after deciding I wanted to blog because of "squiffy." I don't want to seem prudish, so I'll just say I think that kind of double entendre has gone out of style.
Anyway, let's talk about "squiffy" — meaning "drunk." It is in the OED, with the oldest use from a letter written around 1855: "Curious enough there is a Lady Erskine, wife of Lord E, her husband's eldest brother living at Bollington, who tipples & ‘gets squiffy’ just like this Mrs E."
It can also mean "askew" as in this 1977 novel "Rum, Bum and Concertina":"Often in later life, people have asked me if I have ever been to an orgy or, as the Sixties preferred to call it, become involved in ‘group sex’ and, thinking in terms of heterosexuality, I’ve always said no, or at any rate only to the extent of a threesome or as a quarter of an interchangeable quartet. In fact at this period of my life I was fairly frequently a participant in mass homosexuality but, thinking of it as simply an extension of schoolboy activities, I never associated it with an orgy, a term I felt to imply a Roman profusion of grapes, wine, buttocks, breasts, marble chaises-longues, and squiffy laurel crowns."
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35 comments:
>Put the tent up as soon as you arrive<
Yeah, duh. Real campers are not in need of that advice - it is for partiers who like to party at campgrounds.
"Remembering which poles go in which slots first is hard at the best of times..."
The polished, smooth hammock-camper looks down upon the boorish, rococo tent-assembler. I'm done in 10 minutes tops while slurping White Claws while they're still clearing a spot for their contraption. Get on my level, Gemma.
Huh. I've only heard "squiffed."
Squiffy? Gemma? English peoples. I would have be flat drunk to pull out squiffy and use it sitting round the campfire. And Gemma gets a pass. We named our semi-tame male woodland fowl Mallory - a name that goes both ways. I wanted Evelyn but that was to much of a stretch out American sensibilities.
Even when beer camping, when you arrive at the campsite it is going to be dark, windy, and raining…hard, so you practice erecting the tent at home, perhaps many times until it’s second nature, like a nascar pit stop.
Newsflash - girls of the 21st century are a lot more into anal sex than girls of previous centuries. It may be supposed that the efforts of your recently disavowed Democrats to mainstream homosexuality opened a lot more doors than expected. Back doors.
Any, [sic] let's talk about "squiffy" — meaning "drunk."
As anyone who has lived in a college dorm, frat house, and/or army barracks can tell you, there are degrees of drunkenness ranging from mildly buzzed to passed out in a puddle of mixed vomit and urine. “Squiffy” appears to be a little past “buzzed,” to the point where one talks and laughs a bit too loud and needs to focus carefully to do the simplest things.
Norm enjoyed his tipples, but when asked, “what’s up?” he’d reply, “my nipples, it’s damned cold out there!”
My camping story:
We were putting up our tent. It started to rain. We all ran to wait in the car for the rain to stop. Our tent collapsed. Which we didn’t see as a problem. Much to our surprise several male neighboring campers ran to put our tent back up. So my dad had to go out in the rain and help them.
Never heard it before. Going to attempt to use it as much as possible. Thank you.
I assume Gemma Bowes is a Millennial. They can't stop the double entendre humor.
Norm! (RIP)
The term "squiffy" is a bit twee.
I use 'squicked' and 'skeevy' quite often.
"That guy discussing his back rash really squicked me out."
"I don't usually chat with young women at the gym else I look all skeevy."
"Remembering which poles go in which slots first is hard at the best of times, so delay the fun until you are fully erect, so to speak."
That's what she said.
Google: "Here's a list of English slang words and phrases for being drunk":
Common & General:
Hammered
Tanked
Wasted
Plastered
Canned
Juiced-up
Fried
Loaded
Jarred
Three sheets to the wind
Pie-eyed
Cockeyed
Oiled
Embalmed
Blasted
Skunked
Steamed
Toasted
Buzzed
Sloshed
Wrecked
Basted (high and drunk at the same time)
Annihilated
Bombed
Lit
Lubricated
Pickled
S***faced
Snookered
Sozzled
Tanked-up
Tipsy
Trashed
Well-oiled
Zonked
British Slang:
Pissed: In the UK, this means drunk; "pissed off" is angry.
Blitzed: A slang term for being drunk or heavily intoxicated.
Sozzled: A British term for being drunk.
Bladdered: A slang term for being drunk.
Paralytic: Very drunk, to the point of being unable to stand up.
Mashed: A slang term for being drunk.
Legless: A British slang term for being so drunk you can't stand.
Steamboats: Scottish slang for being very drunk.
Other Slang:
Off your face: Slang for being drunk.
Zonked: Another slang term for being drunk.
Tipsy: Slightly drunk.
In the bag: A slang term for being drunk.
Three sheets to the wind: A nautical term for being very drunk.
Kaylied: A British term for being very drunk.
Langered: Irish slang for being drunk.
Cooter Brown: A Southern United States term for being drunk.
Out to it: Australian slang for being drunk.
Lit: Can mean exciting, excellent, or intoxicated.
Wiped out: A slang term for being very drunk.
Squiffy: A British term for being tipsy or slightly drunk.
Canned: A slang term for being drunk.
Stewed: A slang term for being drunk.
Ripped: Slang for being very drunk.
Broken: A South African slang term for being drunk.
Stukkend: A South African slang term for being drunk.
Dronkverdriet: South African slang meaning "drunk sorrow".
"This is not an exhaustive list, as there are many other slang terms used across different regions and communities."
I never heard of squiffy but would have guessed that it describes a woman who doesn't react in the way that you had every right to expect. A woman about whom no plan would be correct, no matter how well founded.
Squiffy is spiffy.
A refusal to be nailed down.
Squiff being the sound of escaping whatever it is.
You overlooked Langered and Rat Arsed.
Brits camping in the 70's - "Nuts in May"
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0074988/
First rule is always put up the Tent. You never know when its going to rain.
The worst thing is to putting up your tent in the dark with a hard driving rain. Difficult and unpleasant. However the reward is worth x10 the effort.
That last quote is a great example of unreliable narration.
This gives added meaning to the British political slogan of a century ago: "No Squiffery". "Squiffy" was Herbert Henry Asquith and his followers and heirs were fighting David Lloyd George for control of the Liberal Party. Asquith was rumored to be a drinker, but his chief intoxication was with the attentions of his femaie admirers.
As the Althouses have discovered, the best rule about setting up a tent is to get a pickup camper.
Squiffy? Meh.
"chinwag" is the word that jumped out at me. A bit archaic but I do run across it from time to time.
It should be used more.
"George, let me take you to dinner and we can have a proper chinwag about the institution of marriage"
Anthony Lacon to George Smiley in "Smileys people.
Quote from memory
I
If you stop, get out of the vehicle, and set up your tents, you may be camping, but you're not camping camping. You're party camping. Real camping involves a hike of some indefinable distance before finding a suitable spot to set up and enjoy the sights and sounds of nature. Planning on one night out? You can bring enough alcohol to get completely blitzed- which is not just a Brit term. Planning on a few days in the wilderness? Alcohol goes way down on the list. Food goes way up on the list. And water may or may not be depending on available water supplies and whether they can be made potable.
"Dickson's Word Treasury" has literally thousands of words/phrases for "drunk". (My favourite: "He's the King's cousin".)
the Most Best reason to put your tent up ASAP is:
if it's not raining NOW, you want your tent up before it might start..
if it IS raining NOW, the world is just going to get wetter, the longer you wait..
it is far FAR Better, to have a dry tent
it is STILL Better, to have a less wet tent.
Get your tent up NOW!
"Planning on a few days in the wilderness? Alcohol goes way down on the list."
151 rum. Got us through many 2 week backpacking sojourns.
Squiffy is a word I learned from Downton Abbey.
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