Had a lot to drink

[timshadie]

Where dose that saying come from when you say "I was ratassed last night" ?

[andy hughes]

The original phrase is "...p*ssed as a rat's a*se" - abbreviated to the phrase you mention. It's a variation on 'p*ssed as a newt'and similar, but why a rat's bottom, or a newt, I don't knbow, but I bet someone on here will. Are you out there QM?

[Quizmonster]

The earliest recorded connection of rats and drunkenness appeared in 'Rhetoric' by T Wilson published in 1553. It reads: "as if one had kepte the Taverne till he had been as dronke as a Ratte". The addition of British and American words for 'bottom' are just a modern stretching of the idea.

Despite the concept being all but half a millennium old, I have no more idea than Andy why rats and drunkenness should ever have been connected at all.

[Quizmonster]

Click http://www.bollixed.net/bollixed/thesaurus.shtml

 and a link will take you to a page with some 200 words/phrases meaning 'drunk'. If you study the list, you'll see that hardly any of them is susceptible to rational explanation. Nor is it very likely that an actual source will ever be isolated.

[stevie21]

My completely ill-educated guess was that it was a reference to being horizontal & in the gutter - that (just to emphasise the disgusting-ness) the rat's a*** would be literally under "water".