Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 14:48:17 -0500

From: Alan Baragona baragonasa[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]VAX.VMI.EDU

Subject: Re: RE Re: sportswriters' disease



Grant Barrett wrote:



Journalists, of course, lay a claim to alcoholism as the a requirement of the profession, and for

good reason, I think.



When I was still a small-time journalist, my peers and I went to a journalism conference in

Baton Rouge. We were met in the hotel lobby by six happily drunk Pulitzer Prize winners, and

I've often thought of that as typical since.



Grant Barrett

gbarrett[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dfjp.com



There's a story that Flann O'Brien, the great Irish comic novelist, was

fired from his job as a civil servant for alcoholism, but sued to get

his pension back on the grounds that alcoholism is an occupational

hazard of working for the Irish Civil Service. He reportedly won. I'd

be willing to bet there are a lot of colorful Irish words and phrases,

euphemistic and otherwise, for heavy drinking and drinkers.