French Language Police Call Time on 'le binge drinking'

THE GUARDIAN: Culture ministry commission approves use of new phrase, beuverie express, which translates as 'fast drinking'

As long as it was seen as nothing more than an antisocial Anglo-Saxon habit, le binge drinking remained just that: an English term. As a sign of the changing times and the reported spread of the practice in France, however, the country's language police have decreed an official new term.

As of now, binge drinking does not happen in France. Instead, anyone consuming large quantities of alcohol in a short space of time with the intention of getting drunk is engaged in beuverie express.

The phrase, which translates literally as "fast drinking", was given the official approval of the culture ministry's general commission of terminology and neology on Sunday. The commission defined the term as "the massive absorption of alcohol, generally in a group, aimed at provoking drunkenness in the minimum amount of time".

Le Monde further qualified "massive absorption" as "more than 4-5 glasses in less than two hours", but failed to elucidate how big a glass or of what. » | Kim Willsher in Paris | Monday, July 29, 2013

Let Them Smoke Cigarettes!
DAILY EXPRESS: She’s unlikely to please the anti-smoking health lobby but actress Maureen Lipman has bizarrely suggested that the problems of Britain’s youth binge drinking culture could be solved by encouraging youngsters to smoke instead.

Maureen Lipman thinks that the youth binge drinking cuture could be solved by encouraging youth to smoke. Photo courtesy of the Daily Express
While the rest of the country is trying to curb smoking, Maureen claims it’s a lesser evil than alcohol and should become ­acceptable in public again.

She is particularly concerned, she says, by the way young women are now becoming drunkenly boorish in a manner that used to be confined to men.

“We fought for equal rights but we have just inherited the worst traits of men,” says Maureen, 62. “This is a bad thing.

“Girls go out drinking and wearing virtually nothing. They are like highly coloured insects looking not just for a drink but a good seeing-to.

“I think we should let them smoke. It was very calming to smoke. There was the whole ritual with the little Zippo lighter. I know it’s the worst thing to say these days but you can go out and drink yourself stupid and kill someone in your car or beat up your wife but you are not allowed to smoke.” Why Lipman Has Got Them Fuming >>> | Wednesday, April 1, 2009