Some people, particularly younger folks, are adamant that the term belligerent means “drunk.” It’s a misanalysis of the word, perhaps associating being intoxicated with being ready to fight. Instead, belligerent derives from the Latin word bellum, meaning “war,” also found in bellicose, and the term applied to that period before a war, particularly the U.S. Civil war, antebellum. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Belligerent Doesn’t Mean Drunk”
I was on the phone the other day with a producer of a podcast for Gimlet Media and she told me that one of the things that bothers her about language and we don’t do peeves very often anymore but is that some people believe that the word belligerent means drunk and only drunk. Yeah, not angry or ready to fight or very aggressive, but just drunk. And sure enough, if you look on Urban Dictionary, that source of all that is wrong and good in the world, if such thing is going to be true, you’ll find that there are people arguing about belligerent not meaning drunk. I will find plenty of examples, if you want me to, of people thinking it only means drunk. Is that right? Yeah, and it looks like it’s a misanalysis. When somebody is drunk, you might often say that they were a belligerent drunk or they were belligerent drunk, right? And people misunderstood belligerent to mean drunk.
Oh, that’s really fascinating.
Yeah, it’s the younger set.
And I don’t know if it will stick, but it’s certainly some evidence that people believe it to be true, that belligerent only means drunk.
Well, I just learned something.
I mean, yeah, the younger set who’s not studying Latin and would know that belligerent is related to Latin bellum like antebellum before the Civil War.
Oh, so it means prone to war.
Yeah, yeah.
That’s cool.
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