A binge is on its own

meaningsemanticssentence-meaningslang

I am quite sure that the sentence

There was a binge yesterday

is grammatically correct. But what about semantics? I mean, there was an event like a drinking party yesterday. Do I use the binge word properly?
I want to use the binge word as a noun on its own. Is it allowed in this case?

I got some third-party opinion:

It is not right to use the binge word in that way. Because binge on its own doesn't truly explain itself, you'd have to out 'drinking' there before or after it.
E.g. 'There was a drinking binge yesterday'
Or 'We went out binge drinking last night'

But this opinion is pretty dubious for me especially in the drinking binge part.

Is this sentence (There was a binge yesterday) really clumsy, inadequate and inappropriate in English speech?

In the novel Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh, I found a similar use of the word "binge":

  • How about a binge?
  • What about that binge you promised me and Prendy?
  • Here's to Trumpington, whoever he is, who gave us the money for this binge!

Best Answer

Yes, the sentence There was a binge yesterday is both grammatically correct and clumsy and I'd venture so far as to say that few native speakers (certainly BrE speakers) would put things that way.

OED gives the definition of the noun binge as

slang (originally dialect: see Eng. Dial. Dict.).
A heavy drinking-bout; hence, a spree.

and it defines the verb binge as you'd expect, to indulge in such an event.

so while @alphabet's comment that binge doesn't always refer to an alcohol-soaked spree it usually does, and without qualification (as in eg a coke and methamphetamine binge) one would usually interpret it to be so, alcohol-soaked that is.

It would be more natural to say something like I was on a binge last night or My flatmates went out on a binge for the weekend, I stayed in and studied the scriptures.

The expression There was a binge last night is the kind of thing a university student might say to his mother (other sexes of student are available, as are other parents) when she visits one morning to find the shared accommodation in total disarray and when the student wishes to leave open the slim possibility that mother's darling son was not at the very heart of goings-on.

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