Squiffy (pronounced skwiff-e)
An
informal term describing someone somewhere on the spectrum of drunkenness, now used mostly of mild yet obvious intoxication.
Late
1800s: Based on the surname Asquith and coined because of habit of Herbert
Henry Asquith (1852–1928; UK prime-minister 1908-1916) in appearing in the
House of Commons, visibly affected by alcohol.
From this he earned (and richly deserved) the sobriquet “Squiffy". Squiffy, squiffier, squiffiest & squiffed are adjectives, squiffiness & Squiffite are nouns and squiffily is an adverb; historically, the the most common noun plural was Squiffites. The concocted noun squiffinessness is wholly jocular and sometimes appropriate.
HH Asquith
was brought up in a provincial household in the puritan tradition where alcohol
was rarely served but, after a second marriage in which he took a socialite
wife and began to move in the circles of London’s glittering 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.
Anti-squiffiness device: Lindsay Lohan wearing one of AMS's (Alcohol Monitoring Systems) SCRAMs (Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring).
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.
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