Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2011 March 11

= March 11 =

TV show
I vaguely remember watching a reality TV show, on the History Channel I think, maybe 10 years ago, maybe more, which involved several teams composed from various American special ops people (and SWAT cops) which competed on various semi-combat scenarios, like hostage taking, etc. Does anyone know what I am talking about and can remind me what it was called? --216.239.45.130 (talk) 05:44, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Combat Missions. Livewireo (talk) 06:57, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's it, thanks. --216.239.45.130 (talk) 06:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Such a great show. A shame they only did one season. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 18:30, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Sunday morning, coming down
Was the lyric "Wishing, lord, that I was stoned" meant to mean what it would be taken to mean now? Stanstaple (talk) 22:32, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Given that it was written in the late 1960s, almost certainly yes. Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:47, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
 * What do you think it means now? It can also mean "drunk". I would normally think it refers to drugs, but in that song I thought it referred to alcohol. Adam Bishop (talk) 10:34, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It indeed meant "drunk" as well as "under the influence of marijuana". By the late 60s, "stoned" had pretty much taken on the latter meaning completely, as per the mid-60s song in which Dylan sang, "everybody must get stoned." As noted in EO, the term arose in the 30s and meant either drunk or on-drugs. Stoned originally meant pelted with stones (that double meaning is what Dylan alludes to), and someone highly-intoxicated might give the impression of someone who had survived a stoning (note the similar expression, "smashed", which primarily refers to alcohol). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:20, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The term "stoned" as in "stone drunk" i.e. alcohol intoxication, remained a prominent use of the term at least until the 1970's. See "Piano Man", which has the line "The waitresses practicing politics/While the businessmen slowly get stoned" refering to men getting drunk in a bar.  "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down" most certainly refers to this usage as well, as in the line "The beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad/So I had one more for dessert".  I think the confusion arises from the fact that stoned probably meant intoxication in a very general sense, in other words it didn't matter whether the intoxicating substance was ethanol, THC, or LSD, the term was the same.  Eventually, and probably not until the 1980's, the term stoned began to refer exclusively to a marijuana high... -- Jayron  32  16:44, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Excellent point. I had forgotten about the Billy Joel lyric. Of course, he needed something to (almost) rhyme with "alone". But it seems like we're talking about a cultural crossover time, where the one use displaced the other, as marijuana went from being marginal to being relatively widely used. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:13, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The OED cites the following quotes for stoned meaning drunk from 1952 to 1976:
 * 1952   Life 29 Sept. 67/2   Like boiled snails, bop jokes certainly are not everybody's dish, but those who acquire the taste for them feel cool, gone, crazy and stoned.
 * 1952   Life 29 Sept. 67/3   Stoned, drunk, captivated, ecstatic, sent out of this world.
 * 1955   Amer. Speech 30 305   Stoned out of his skull, intoxicated to an intense degree.
 * 1957   J. Kerouac On Road i. xiii. 90,   I had finished the wine‥and I was proper stoned.
 * 1968   Listener 28 Nov. 735/2   He would only be taken in charge if he was drunk: were he to spend his ten shillings on getting stoned out of his mind the police would happily accommodate him.
 * 1972   R. Reid Canadian Style (1973) iv. 144   Then they all laugh and get stoned.
 * 1976   P. Cave High Flying Birds ii. 18   We drive off the ferry at Roscoff late in the afternoon, both well and truly stoned on cut-price booze.


 * However, it also cites these following quotes for stoned meaning high for more or less the same time span:
 * 1953   H. J. Anslinger & W. F. Tompkins Traffic in Narcotics 315 Stoned, under the influence of drugs.
 * 1956   ‘E. McBain’ Cop Hater (1958) ix. 85   You're an H-man‥and we know you copped three decks a little while back. Are you stoned now, or can you read me?
 * 1967   M. M. Glatt et al. Drug Scene viii. 97   Addicts know these dangers, one for example describing graphically how in a ‘stoned’ state he had stepped out in front of a car.
 * 1971   ‘D. Halliday’ Dolly & Doctor Bird x. 129   They're all lying around in there wearing beads and stoned out of their skulls on French Blues.
 * 1981   M. Leitch Silver's City viii. 65   If he'd been pissed, he reflected, instead of stoned, he might still be in khaki, but, as it was, the old man had a down on drugs, and so it was a dishonourable discharge or nothing.


 * The lyrics to the second verse of the song are "I'd smoked my brain the night before/on cigarettes and songs that I'd been pickin', but I lit my first and watched a small kid/cussin' at a can that he was kickin." "Smoked my brain" kind of sounds like it implicates pot, but he specifically mentions cigarettes and lights one Sunday morning. If it had been a marijuana cigarette, he would be stoned (high) and not have to be wishing for it, so I'd say the intended meaning was drunk.  --some jerk on the Internet    (talk)  16:43, 17 March 2011 (UTC)