Makes sense somehow, but you would have had to spend a night in downtown LA to understand.

Yum. I must go again someday.

PNH: Aye, tis a sovran remedy.

Damn finals.

Someone here has mixed alcohols, i say. Some sulfuric white wine maybe?

Then lots of protein for breakfast. Cheese omelettes are perfect.

The new cathedral is Queen of Angels; St Vibiana's been retired from the duty (as a building at least). Nice tapestry hangings in the new cathedral (pictures on their website).

Traditional local remedy on the morning after: menudo.

If Teresa hasn't mixed too much, i bet on a ridiculously good shape at wake up.

In the meantine, sleep well :)

or in this case... stoli. :) best drunk post ever.

Reste ye well.

Really? Sounds kind of harsh. Is it supposed to take your mind off the pain? Would an hour of Abba work as well?

Oh, you mean . . . menudo.

Feel better. This too shall pass.

(Dear God, has it really been THAT long since I contributed 2 articles to Wilson's Dictionary of Medieval Women Writers?)

Oh, and I hope that

heer endeth:
TNH

Otherwise, I recommend Tylenol or the equivalent (for those who can take it) tonight and fluids tomorrow. (I get dehydrated easily. 'All the fun of a hangover, without the hassle of actually consuming any alcohol.') And my most sincere sympathy.

But Azerbaijani (and Persian) food is so worth eating.

Depends. If jazzed up with enough tabasco, pepper, celery salt and Worcestershire sauce, it can help but not cure.

Same with the "hair of the dog" prescription. In my experience, that just adds to the previous alcohol content, with results one might not like.

LOL. How Mistress Quickly of her.

Hope she's feeling better in the morning, smalle fowles notwithstanding.

(That's aside from what was obviously going down if I was speaking Middle English at all. Patrick's known these twenty years and more that that's a sure sign that I'm three sheets to the wind.)

At the moment, all I can clearly remember is a brimful cup that held well more than a double shot, and my hosts saying "Drink!"

I do hope I behaved myself.

Orange juice. Ibuprofen. Somebody shoot me.

As for Geoffrey Chaucer's Blog, some people evidently don't know exactly how many decades TNH has spoken the Middle Englishe. Or that she was being paid to proofread it years before the Web was a glint in the eye of Tim Berners-Lee...

I'm praying Porco Bruno doesn't start roaring...

Ond ye lilacks begynneth to ope! Ich coulde smelle thir swetenesse whilst watchyng ye televisioune.

Bodl. 13672

Linkmeister, you're missing an ingredient there, but I fear it might defeat the purpose.

Unfortunately I cannot respond in Middle English. I can tell anyone from Germany that my hovercraft is full of eels, but that is neither here nor there.

Drink LOTS of water.

Are your neighbors from the Autonomous Jewish Adminstrative Area, which might just have that weird mix of Azerbaijan and Yiddish you describe above?

BTW, from the fun language/accent front, have you ever seen Daisy Cooks! on PBS? That woman sounds just like my Puerto Rican neighbors who babysat me from 1st through 3rd grade. She even whines cawwfee like a true Noo-Yawker.

Poland has lately joined the EU. Poland has lately elected a barking mad clericalist/conservative government (of the flavour that facilitates gay pride marches by sending in the riot police). Possibly as a side-effect of these two items, the Polish population of Edinburgh has shot up from an estimated 2000 to 20,000 in about twelve months, almost all of them young, urban folks who don't want to stay down on the farm forever. Where they go, so go the Polish delis. With tax-free (because it's within the EU) access to Polish vodka (because Kracow is just £30 away by EasyJet these days). Half of 'em seem to have opened just down the high street from my front door. We're now trying to train them to import the interesting rose petal vodka that's been unobtanium in these parts for about three years.

Can we tempt you guys to come back to Edinburgh some time?

Oh, now, there's no need to be melodramatic. Judas said the same thing, you know. He said, "I'm never going to live this down" and look, they finally found his gospel and everything's fine now. Just fine.

Things are always darkest the last two thousand years before the dawn.

Jane

(I'd say that none of us can, but this makes me wonder what hidden talents other people have.)

Jane, what happened to the Hair of the Dog is that I'm never drinking anything alcoholic again ever as long as I live.

I may feel different about this later.

"Hebban olla uogala nestas uagunnan hinase hic and thu uuat unbidan uui nu"

"Have all birds begun building nests except for you and me, what are we waiting for?"

It's not really the oldest sentence of Dutch still extant, but certainly the most romantic. The best candidate for oldest Dutch sentence is "Maltho thi afrio lito" ("I say, I free you, serf") from the Lex Salica.

Which is still nice.

What would you do with a drunken Hayden?
What would you do with a drunken Hayden?
What would you do with a drunken Hayden?
Earlye in the mornin’!

Have another round with the Azerbaijanis!
Have another round with the Azerbaijanis!
Have another round with the Azerbaijanis!
Earlye in the morning’!

Chorus
Way, hay up she rises,
Way, hay, up she rises,
Way, hay, up she rises,
Earlye in the mornin’!

She speaks Middle English until she’s sober!
Speaks Middle English ‘til she’s sober!
Speaks Middle English ‘til she’s sober!
Earlye in the mornin’!

Chorus
Way, hay up she rises,
Way, hay, up she rises,
Way, hay, up she rises,
Earlye in the mornin’!

Have her edit manuscripts with a big hangover!
Edit manuscripts with a big hangover!
Edit manuscripts with a big hangover!
Earlye in the mornin’!

Chorus
Way, hay up she rises,
Way, hay, up she rises,
Way, hay, up she rises,
Earlye in the mornin’!

…or late in the afternoon. Whenever she finally rises.

-=Jeff=-

But whan yow stikk an appel in his teth,
A tinie oon been bet, for, be my feyth,
Un graunt mayhap wol strecche hys comely face,
Till folk been stertled be hys fyrce grymace,
And crie out, "Certes, be my faders wigge,
This nas na verray parfit gentil pigge!"

That in itself is worth the price of the book if you ever run across it, but there's more. Much more.

Ich saie this, being well assured that, whyl the middele Englisshe beth not myn native speech, myn name, atte the leest, ben part of it.

Ah! The Hammered One's complaint!

"I swear you, my love, it was an ambush".

Also I now have several very useful ways to fight hangover. I so wish I needed them...

I am now drinking half-and-half OJ and water, with many ice cubes in it. I haven't kept count, but I think I've fallen asleep, awakened, and fallen asleep again six or seven or eight times since coming home.

*I think. Lisa may have a better idea.

I have to say, only on Making Light would I see a reference to a gatling gun, in Welsh, with proper mutations.

I am awestruck.

Aside from the bizarre way youghs are rendered, quite easy Middle English. Well worth the reading.

I know, I know, if Chaucer were truly dead, he'd be rolling in his grave 'bout now... Keep alternating juice and water (heavy on the water), get some B-1 tabs, food as tolerated, heavy on protein...

Sounds like it was a swell party. They were just being good neighbors. And they clearly like you.

You can get them back, you know. Just serve them large glasses of your lovely wicked citrus mixture. But given the fact that vodka must flow in their veins they may think of it as fruit punch...

Heal well, my friend.

The jukebox so loudly was playin'
Each couple havin' a ball
But of all of them gals, their sweethearts and pals
I bet I'm the sickest of all.

A pre-going out conversation looked like this:

GF: "Who should we call to go out with us tonight?"
Me: "How about Carolina?"
GF: "Oh, she went back to London."
Me: "Gustav, then?"
GF: "I think he's back in Ireland."
ME: "Wojtek?"
GF: "Still in Sheffield."

We met with Ewelina in the end. She told us that she's about done with her BA thesis, and that, once she had her BA, she'd probably be going to England.

It's sad and at the same time perfectly understandable. True, most of these young minds leave because other countries will pay them 10 times what Poland would pay them, and for half the work too (and even factoring in higher living costs in other countries, they'd still earn about three times as much), but the fact that their education still has a distinctive 19th century feel to it (what, you wanna study applied linguistics? Why, that's wonderful! Here's five years' worth of tables listing idioms and other oddities most native speakers will never have heard of--and I'm a German native speaker, and my girlfriend studies German, and I can attest to whatever it is they're studying hasn't been spoken in Germany for a long, long time) and that their politicians are distinctively more ape-shit crazy than is the norm for politicians (yay, let's demand war reparations from Germany with a rhethoric that would have driven a tear to Göbbels's eyes) surely don't encourage young people to stay. Oh, and the job market! The wonderful job market! You have an MA? Great! You're now fully qualified to roller-skate through a supermarket and check on customer complaints.

I've met and spoken to I'd say about twenty people my age (let's diplomatically make that 20-25; I'm at the, eh, end of that range ;P) in the six times that I've been to Poland. Not one of them has said that they're planning to stay in Poland. Everyone wants to get out. It's really sad.

Having said that, make sure you try Żubrówka, the Bison-grass Wódka. It always cracks me up how Wódka is the diminuitive of water. Just a little water ;) I recommend Żubrówka z sokiem jabłkowem (no guarantees for my Polish orthography ;P)--that is, with apple juice. Two parts juice, one part wódka. Lots of fun.

But... the last time I was shopping at AJ's, the local upscale grocery chain, I noticed their liquor department included a brand called Black Death Vodka.

It seemed appropriate to mention here.

Young people these days...

You speak Middle English only when drunk.

Oh dear. In future, perform genealogical research to ascertain that there were some Slavic ancestors performing raids on Anglo-Saxon villages who made their way into the bloodline, before gorging on vodka.

Speaking of which, if anyone ever gets a line on Tarkhuna vodka, you know where to post about it.

Me: "Hey Keith, did you see Making Light today?"
Keith: "No, why?"
Me: "Teresa got drunk and posted in Middle English."

Of Silly Things To Do When Drunk, this is one of the best.

(This Keith != Keith Kisser, although his last name is startlingly similar.)

OK, not ME but forsoothly. I need to read more Chaucer.

The flawe yn paganisme

Drinken, syngen wyth fayre steven,
Loven til the lark crith 'hoo,'
For a-morwe shul we sterven:
But -alas!- we neuir do.

Wyht grete admiracioun

Le Vostre Servaunt

GC

NO! IXS-NAY ON THE ILENOL-TAY!

I'm sorry for the shouting, but Tylenol + booze == ReallyBadIdea, unless you like the idea of winding up on a waiting list for a new liver.

Seriously.

The risk is most pronounced for alcoholics, but if you're a regular consumer of alcohol (even of moderate quantities), the suggested dose of Tylenol can do your liver in.

For the person who rarely drinks, Tylenol can still be a problem a.) if they have an underlying condition that renders their liver more fragile (for lack of a better term) and it can't handle the load of both Tylenol and the alcohol, b.) they've been taking cold remedies (because so many of them contain acetominophen (sp?)) and so they've taken far more Tylenol than they realize, c.) they take too much by accident because the alcohol impairs their judgement.

I can't say this strongly enough: never, ever, ever, EVER mix Tylenol & alcohol.

That said - it sounds like a most excellent evening (if a somewhat less than optimal morning).

Teresa, you should rent yourself out to college students taking Middle English. So long as they provide the alcohol, they get free conversational Middle English lessons!

Water, water, water. Bs and Cs. Juice if tolerated. And by all means, invite your charming neighbors over for a little of that gorgeous citrus stuff (the hangover from which would be significant, given the sugar content!)

If this drinke you use, in plyce of clean wateres, to make agin the juice of þe norange that were ys and þick, oft enow it tastes hym as though hyt where of oranges freshly squozen, withoughten any part of þe strone drinke therinit.

No goode dost come of thyse.

Jane

None of that helps us discern the neighbors' origins, because the customs are common to pretty much the whole post-Soviet space. Still, if you can lay your hands on any Russian Standard (Russki Standart), that's basically the best vodka coming out of Russia right now, there's no telling what secrets and culinary delights the neighbors might divulge.

I've read that this custom originated because in the USSR, vodka bottles had paper (cardboard?) caps. Of course, they may have had those because of the custom; it's hard to tell.

The maiden is not dead, but sleepeth.

I am reminded of a visit we made to the National Zoo long ago, and there encountered a cage containing what appeared to be a medium-sized, spiky, lying-on-its-back-dead marsupial. Closer inspection revealed a small sign posted inside the cage: "The echidna is not dead. It is only sleeping."

Perhaps it too had been indulging in the waters of the Rus.

I dimly recall attempting Tuvan throat singing while drunk.

But I digress. This group brought with them suitcases full of vodka which they shared with all who entertained them. They also brought in their suitcases bacon lard (which caused the police dogs at the airport to go absolutely wild) because it was their belief that if they ate the bacon lard first, they could drink as much vodka as they needed to w/o ill effect. Must have worked, b/c while the rest of us were spinning after a few snifters, they were going til very late in the evening. The singing was the best.

Oh, and may I reommend this piece from daily kos on the Albigensian crusades?

Albigensian Crusades.

re the results of too much alcohol (or too little non-alcohol): minimal amounts used of whatever pain reliever you prefer. Two while the headache is small. Once the headache goes critical, nothing until the system has settled again, however long that takes (not usually long, fortunately). Go to bed and sleep. Wake up and take the pain reliever of choice; go back to sleep. Maybe repeat in the morning, if it's still trying to get you. Sleep works very well as a remedy.

I appreciate that he's trying to make a point, and not writing for a specialized audience. However, the Cathars are the trendy heretics of the moment - Southern France is overrun with "Cathar tours," the highways are marked as Cathar routes, there are groups of neo-Cathars around the world (including one called the Gaythars); in short, everyone who wants to make a point about their dissatisfaction with contemporary Christianity is co-opting the Cathars to do it. Take almost all of the result with copious amounts of salt.

Teresa, I hope you're feeling better by now!

Sort of like The Gospel of Judas is the trendy gospel of the moment?

The Gospel of Judas has somewhat less historical evidence connecting it to, well, anything.

On the other monstrance, if your point was that the Albigensian Heresy (or more accurately, popcult versions thereof) chelates with the zeitgeist, and so does the Original Gangsta Judas of the putative Gospel, yeah, I can follow that.

The same more or less holds true for consuming high-fat foods prior to drinking. It'll slow down the rate of absorbtion, but all that alcohol has to enter your bloodstream sooner or later. All you've done is increase the value of 'later'.

(My wife does alcohol research...)

When I visited the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during its final years, vodka bottles were capped with a non-recloseable foil (or perhaps foil-coated cardboard) cap. So I can confirm that bit.

Overall standards of food packaging were *extremely* low and primitive, so I'd vote for the packaging giving rise to the custom rather than vice versa. Eggs were sold loose (dump 'em carefully in whatever you got) and cheese in rough hunks wrapped in paper after you selected one. Milk was in fragile waxed cardboard. Beer was commonly sold from a 200 gallon tank into whatever container you brought; I saw guys on the street buying and drinking out of gallon glass pickle jars. Cooking oil was often in a plastic bottle sealed at the top by twisting the neck while hot -- cut off the melted twist to open, and stuff a rag in the hole to close. Thusly.

I'm in the camp who doesn't get a hangover from Stoli drunk straight up in the Russian fashion; I like to drink water before unconsciousness claims me to avoid morning dehydration, but the dreaded pounding head and nausea does not visit, pretty much without regard to volumes consumed. Here's hoping Teresa, properly fortified with liquids, had a similar experience.

And he did.

He and David, by the way, were old colleagues and had worked together at some computer body shop or other in the '60s!

A toast to old friends, now gone.

Jane

As far as I can tell, there are no "cures", only palliatives. That said, hair-of-ye-dog makes sense when you consider that what the body is going through after the fact is a drug withdrawal. When I was still working at Payne Whitney, a staged withdrawal with administration of gradually decreased amounts of alcohol was de rigueur. (Though there were clients we would have loved to withdraw cold turkey, ethics forbade. Mutter.)(Now wondering if I spelled "rigueur" right.)

Re the pre-drinking prep: Butter or other high-fat things ingested an hour or so previous to the event do work somewhat, as the villi in the upper gut have a specific order in which they handle input. Normally alcohol would be metabolized first...but you can slow down this process a whole lot by taking up all the available receptor sites with fat molecules. The alcohol then has to wait in line. NB that this will not protect you against really prolonged drinking and its aftereffects. Also, it helps to eat while drinking. Bread is useful, but more useful as a way to get some more butter down you.

Agreeing also with all above who said NONONONONO to acetaminophen / Tylenol & alcohol. Ever so NOT. Bad liver toxicity.

Hey, Jane -- (hugs)(x2)

Or a good supply of Scotch on Burns Night?

The Russians seem to have a large number of celebratory customs which make use of vodka. For instance, a newly promoted military officer having his new rank insignia at the bottom of a brim-full glass of vodka, and having to drink the whole lot in one go, without spilling any.

I don't think that would be viable for Hugo Awards, it would have to be a very large glass, with languag effects approaching Proto-Indo-European.

(Stop that at once...!)

I always thought that the use of the diminutive was as a term of endearment - as we might say in English, "nice water" or "cute little water". And it does look like water.

If you have fallen into the clutches of a particular flavour of purist, you had better hope so. ('Scotch' being, in that lexicon, the blended stuff; the other, single malt, stuff, is whiskey. (Sometimes without the e.))

If all they've got to drink on Burns night is blended, they'll be sullen and morose.

What's to live down? My Middle English there is a mess.

The fact that while intoxicated you can slip into Middle English and type it is rather astonishing.

I am most impressed at your...skill.

Whether the Russian version was once called 'vodka zhizna' is something I don't know. Web research suggests not; 'dear little water' is probably what is meant...though usually that form of the diminutive is pejorative—'Mishenka' means 'dear Mikey', while 'Mishka' means 'bad Mikey'. 'Vodenka' is Just Wrong though. And maybe they curse it the next day!

Lovely.

(And about my name, spelled Laur[ence] - it used to be Laura. But now that I see somebody else spelling it with the brackets, it looks silly. So, no more brackets.)

Now that it is a season indistinguishable from summer here, perhaps I should have a bottle of Prosecco with my next Learn Italian iPod session.

Now there's a thought. In my case, apply it to the review/relearn process. (Of course, I've been known to drink prosecco in the dead of winter.)

Before-my-time Britsh novels sometimes refer to "eau de vie"; I'm not sure whether that's just an affectation (like passages of Sayers or D'Oyly Carte's family speaking French at home) or what the French also call it (at least as a generic). Dutch, as one might guess, describes less lyrically but more accurately; "brandy" comes from (e.g.) brandewijn, literally "burned wine".

"Brandy," on the other hand, is a corruption of the original "baran-duin," as any denizen of Making Light ought to know.

Oh, is that the time?

Echidnas, by the way, are actually monotremes, not marsupials — they lay eggs like platypodes.

So that's what the plural of "platypus" is. How lovely. I'll have to try and bring platypodes up in casual conversation some time.

octopus::octopodes ( lost a bet on that once. I called the library reference desk, who said "Octopusses or octopi." The other guy said "Ask them to check the OED.")
platypus::platypodes

Ha!

In general, as far as recent events: The best hangover cure I know is "be 18, and in excellent shape." At least, it used to work for me.

The worst hangover I ever had (no details, either of the affliction itself, or of the events leading up to it, will be disclosed) was when I was 19. I've actually gotten better about such things since. Perhaps due to having been given advice similar to that in this thread.

Modern Drunkard (MDM): ... I’ve read that hangovers are especially brutal down there.

F. Scott Robert (FSR): Just so. Barometrically, we are at an altitude of approximately 10,000 feet and temperately Antarctica is classified as a desert. It’s very high and very dry, so while one’s terrible thirst drives one to the conclusion that half of each beer is being lost to evaporation before it can be consumed, this is not really the case, thus two beers are conscripted where one might suffice. In addition, after one drinks two times as much as necessary to feel pleasant and warm in one’s otherwise empty bed, the dry air suddenly attacks in the night and robs one of all moisture whatsoever. The victim, now with a nose full of dangerous and dagger-like boogers, wakes the next morning to suspect that the room has been humidified by one’s own saliva.

MDM: Do you possess the secret of an especially effective hangover cure?

FSR: Though it takes time to work, I have always found suffering to be a sure remedy.

And there's no pepper in turkinpippuri, but ammonium chloride. Mm-hmm, sweet ammonium chloride...

Xopher: Vodka zhizna would be vodka zhizni (genitive life modifies nominitive water... had to replay it a few times in my mouth to be sure). One might say, vdodka zhiznaya but that would be, "living water," which has a certain ring to it.

It is, however, an endearment, as otherwise speculated.

Not that many vodkas are made from grain, the potato varieties are rare (the only one I know of as being readily available is the Polish, Monopolowa).

Someone may have posted this upthread, but if not, the name is iÅŸkembe. (pr: eeshkembe - which may also be the noise one makes when presented with it)/climbs out of enormous potential time sink>

Note to self, go read some Chaucer until he maketh sense.