Squiffy

Squiffy (pronounced skwiff-e)

An informal term describing someone somewhere on the lower end of the spectrum of drunkenness, now used mostly of mild yet obvious intoxication.

Mid 1800s: The origin of the adjective “squiffy” (slightly drunk) is uncertain but seems to have been coined in the mid-nineteenth century and may have been an alteration of "skew-whiff" (askew).  The concocted noun squiffinessness is wholly jocular and sometimes appropriate.  In jocular use, squiffy has appeared as a noun in which case the noun plural would be squiffies and there is also the non-standard noun squifette (an intoxicated female) which technically is unnecessary because squiffy used as a noun is gender-neutral but squifette is a “fun word” used affectionately in a way “lush” (a woman known to be a heavy drinker) often is not.  Perhaps surprisingly, “squiffing” never appeared as a word associated with heavy drinking.  Squiffy, squiffier, squiffiest & squiffed are adjectives, Squiffite & squiffiness are noun and squiffily is an adverb; the noun plural is Squiffites.

Herbert Henry Asquith (1852–1928; UK prime-minister 1908-1916) may or may not have been an alcoholic but by the time he had established himself in the House of Commons after a glittering career at the bar, it was well-known he often gave the bottle a nudge and because of the phonetic similarity, he was known, by friend & foe alike, by the sobriquet “old squiffy”; essentially, he'd shifted from one bar to another.  Henry Asquith was brought up in a provincial household in the puritan tradition where alcohol rarely was served but, after a second marriage in which he took a socialite wife and began to move in the circles of London’s smart society, his fondness grew for fine wines and spirits.  These tastes he took with him when he entered parliament in 1885 and his assumption of the premiership two decades later did little to diminish his thirst.

Henry & Venita.  Often, Henry would give things "a bit of a nudge".

Nor did it seem to affect his vitality.  In his early sixties he became quite besotted with Venetia Stanley (1887-1948), the 25 year old best friend of his daughter (Violet Bonham Carter, née Asquith (1887–1969)) and between 1912-1915 he would spend much time in cabinet writing her love letters.  One would have thought a British prime-minister might have much else on his mind in during these years, but “old squiffy” seemed to fit it all in, Andrew Bonar Law (1858–1923; UK prime-minister 1922-1923) admitting at the time that Asquith “when drunk could make a better speech than any of us sober”.  Sometimes though, even for him, it proved too much.  After one very long lunch left him more than usually squiffy, he fell asleep in the house, unable to be roused to speak in support of his bill dealing with the Church of Wales, leaving its carriage to the postmaster-general Herbert Samuel (1870–1963) and attorney-general Rufus Isaacs (1860–1935).  It prompted the leader of the opposition (Arthur Balfour (1848–1930; UK prime-minister 1902-1905)) to rise to assure the good folk of the Welsh Church that all would be well because the matters were in the safe care of “…one drunken Christian and two sober Jews.”  The laws of the nation have since sometimes been in less capable hands. 

Anti-squiffiness device: Lindsay Lohan wearing one of AMS's (Alcohol Monitoring Systems) SCRAMs (The acronym standing for Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring but Squiffiness Control Remote Access Monitoring would have been more pleasing).

He led the government for eight-odd years, his first cabinet in 1908 probably the most lustrous of the century and his fall from office probably little to do with alcohol, his character simply not suited to lead a government during wartime.  In subsequent years, he retained a following that became a faction of the Liberal Party and which would be a notable factor in British politics; they were called the Squiffites, a formation easier on the tongue than Asquithite.  English has a rich vocabulary of synonyms for drunk including buzzed, inebriated, laced, lit, magoted, muddled, pissed, plastered, potted, sloshed, shit-faced, squiffy, stewed, tanked, tipsy, totaled, wasted, boozed, groggy, juiced, liquored, tight, under the influence & under-the-table; not all are used in every country and some overlap with descriptions of the effects of other drugs but it’s an impressively long list.  One interesting aspect of the use of squiffy is that it tends to be used with a modifier: the practice being to say “a bit squiffy” or “a little bit squiffy” and it seems now more applied to women.

There may on 4 August 2021 have been some sort of equipment malfunction somewhere in the apparatus used to record and broadcast parliamentary questions from the Australian House of Representatives because many viewers concluded the deputy prime-minister was a bit squiffy.  Question time is held at 2pm (just after lunch).  One constituent wrote to the speaker’s office to enquire and received an assurance from a staff member it’s not possible for a member to appear in the house while squiffy.  Her prompt response was helpful.

The Hon Barnaby Joyce MP (b 1967; thrice deputy prime-minister of Australia, 2016-date (the gaps due to "local difficulties")), House of Representatives, Canberra, Australia, 4 August 2021.  For observers of Mr Joyce who may be searching for the right word, when one is obviously affected by squiffiness, one may be said to be squiffed or squiffy; the comparative being squiffier and the superlative squiffiest.  In fairness to Mr Joyce (we must always try to be fair to Mr Joyce) the vice-presidential inaugural address on 4 March 1965 by a notoriously intoxicated Andrew Johnson (1808–1875; VPOTUS 1865, POTUS 1865-1869) probably was worse although the legend is Mr Johnson had been drunk for at least a week prior so even to turn up for the event was a reasonable achievement.