Bombed

Posted by Bookworm on August 09, 2004

In Reply to: Bombed posted by Lexi on August 09, 2004

: : : : I saw this in an Agatha Christie novel. A man was in a motorcycle accident and the policeman suggested that he may have been one over (the) eight. (I am not sure if the 'the' is correct or not). From the context, I take it to mean "drunk". Any idea as to the origin? I am guessing it is British, I've never heard it here in the US.

: : : From a drunkctionary and from merseytalk dot com or net or org:

: : : "one over the eight: The tradition was that eight pints was the maximum intake on a given night. One more could cause stumbling on the way home. See also bombed."

: : It's still a common phrase in the UK. Origin: as given by Bruce.

: the blood acohol limit in a number of jurisdictions is .8 Could this be the 'over the 8' that is mentioned in the phrase?

Probably not. The book was written in 1934. I don't think blood alcohol levels were an issue back then, as they are now.

• Bombed ESC 10/August/04