Tight = drunk

[Charles Doyle]

The traditional form of the proverbial simile is "queer (odd, crazy) as Dick's hatband"--traceable back to the late 18th century in England.

--Chalrie
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>Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote: ----------------------
>
>"Tight as Dick's hatband"?! Whoa! Far out, man! That's one of my mother's very favorite catch-phrases. I had no idea that it had anything to do with drunkeness till this moment. She used it only to describe something that was liiterally tight: "The skirt that that young gal had on was as tight as Dick's hatband!" I've never heard it or seen it used by anyone else, either in person or in print, before. Till now, my basic impression had been that this was just some otherwise-unknown, East-Texas piney-woods expression. You never know.
>
>-Willson [sic]
>
>On 5/1/07, Jonathan Lighter  wrote:
>>
>> "Tight" basically means "drunk," not "tipsy."  "A little tight," which seems to be throwing people off, means "a little drunk." "Kind of tight" means "kind of drunk."  "Tight as a tick," "...a drum," "...Dick's hat band," etc., mean "very drunk," not "very tipsy."
>>
>>   If I say, "X came in tight," the degree of X's drunkenness goes unstated, but X is indeed "drunk."
>>
>>
>>   JL

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