“Wow, I’m so drunk right now.” Everyone has heard someone use the word drunk before, more than likely when referring to alcohol. The meaning of this word has become lost and has changed with the changing society. It was not always as closely related to alcohol as it is these days. The word is now almost exclusively referred to when dealing with alcohol. Drunk is usually used to describe a person who is drinking in excess or is intoxicated. Penn State students tend to overuse this word, using it to describe themselves or others during any drinking activity. The students should know what it really means to be drunk. As society changed, so did the meaning of this word.

The word drunk was originally defined as being dominated by an intense feeling. (You should give a reference for the etymology.) An example might be: The girl was drunk with joy. The first thing someone today would assume after hearing that, especially a college student, is that a girl was intoxicated with alcohol. In the past, society would understand that the girl is merely under the influence of joy. The interpretation of drunk depends largely on the audience that interprets it, which in this case is college students. The majority of the population, as well as college students, would relate the word drunk directly to alcohol. (A bit repetitive.) Alcohol is just one of the many ways of being drunk or one of the ways to be under the influence. It is typically used as a way to describe a person.

When describing a person, the word drunk can be defined as drinking in excess or being intoxicated. It can also mean the impairment of judgment or to be dominated by an intense feeling. This feeling is not only from alcohol, but also from other things such as excitement or fear. Yet you can be almost certain that if you are on a college campus and hear someone using the word drunk to describe a person, they won’t be talking about someone that is so excited that it’s effecting their judgment. The problem is that the word is now highly overused to describe someone’s state of being after drinking alcohol. It is being used to describe someone who had anywhere from very small amounts of alcohol to excessive amounts. The word is used a lot for bragging, and students often make sure that they let others know that they are drunk. Then they often follow this up by stating how much they had to drink that night, and these numbers are often greatly exaggerated. For this meaning of drunk to work, a stage at which a person can be considered drunk must be determined.

The paper now seems to be defending the contemporary use of 'drunk' as being related to alcohol consumption, but previously the paper was critical of this restriction.

It is very difficult to attempt to put a value on how drunk someone is by the quantity that a person drank in a certain amount of time. Each person is different based on their age, concentration of alcohol drank, weight, or even what they had to eat that day. The police determine when you are drunk by the amount of alcohol that is in your bloodstream by giving a breathalyzer test. This is a great way for the police to get an accurate reading of the alcohol that is your body, but this does not help the rest of society to determine when they or others are considered drunk. It may seem impossible to have an exact point at which you say someone is drunk, but there are many signs which can help determine when someone is indeed drunk. These signs consist of slower reaction times, impaired balance and movement, embarrassing behaviors, and noisy outbursts. If some or all signs listed are evident, then the person is clearly drunk. Now that drunk has been given some boundaries and a list of signs have been identified, it can be accurately defined.

The word drunk can be used as a noun or an adjective. It was formally known as being dominated by an intense feeling, but now has been narrowed down to only relating to alcohol. The original meaning of drunk will still be recognized because, although rarely, it is still used. The word should not be used until some or all of the signs such as slower reaction times are clearly evident in a person’s behavior. The person being described must be clearly intoxicated before the word can be used properly. A correct use of drunk would be as followed, the drunken man fell to the ground in the middle of the street and began crawling to the other side screaming “I love lamp.” This sentence would be correct with the definition drunk because it clearly shows that the man was intoxicated. The man also had an impaired balance and movement, embarrassing behaviors, and had a noisy outburst. The meaning of drunk has now been redefined to meet the need of today’s society.

The example is odd. It would imply only a very small number of PSU students (for example) are drunk on any given weekend, but that seems unlikely.