What does this sentence imply?

July 17, 2016 11:55 PM

Have you ever read ”The third man "by Green? Here is a sentence. "One mix one's drinks." Like, "He told me vaguely that he had been mixing his drinks." Or " If you stayed around in a hotel- lounge, sooner or later incidents occurred; one mixed one's drinks." Or, ...he firmly explained to me, when I accused him of once again mixing his drinks." Well, what hidden meaning does it have and is it common expression for native speakers to imply .. something?
posted by mizukko to Writing & Language (12 answers total)

On the face of it, it means that mixing different types of drink supposedly makes one extra drunk. But really it's a polite way of saying they drank too much.
posted by ottereroticist at 12:04 AM on July 18, 2016 [10 favorites]

Additionally, I think it also means when you are drinking + drinking around others, drama or trouble is the only result.
posted by jbenben at 12:26 AM on July 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Grape or grain, but never the twain.
posted by clorox at 12:34 AM on July 18, 2016 [9 favorites]

I think at that period there would also have been a certain amount of social rootlessness involved. Drinking with close friends on a regular basis, everyone would buy at least one round of drinks for the whole group but it would usually be "the same again" each time, where each person gets the same regular drink. Drinking with a free-floating circle of acquaintances, each person who enters the group was more likely to buy a round of their own favourite drink. So if I read those sentences about mixing drinks in something from the 40s or 50s, I would be inclined to think not just that the character was drinking too much, but that they were drinking with an amorphous group of acquaintances rather than a real circle of friends.
posted by Azara at 2:01 AM on July 18, 2016

There is a common belief that drinking different kinds of alcoholic drinks in one session creates worse drunkenness and worse hangovers. Here I expect it means that someone got very drunk and, it is implied, behaved badly as a result.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 3:58 AM on July 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Isn't it possible to think that Green implies here a sort of love affairs by saying "mixing one's drinks"? I'd like to have an answer from someone who actually read his book...thank you.
posted by mizukko at 7:03 AM on July 18, 2016

"Mixing one's drinks" really does mean drinking different kinds of alcohol, and therefore getting drunk, and therefore getting into trouble. I don't think there's a meaning beyond that.
posted by adamrice at 7:18 AM on July 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

as everyone else is saying, mixing drinks is (was) a known recipe for feeling ill. and i agree that the last two uses in the book are euphemisms for being drunk, based on this.

but the first use is different:

He had [...] a habit of looking over his shoulder that for a time made me suspicious of him until I realised that he went in fear that one of, say, six people might turn up unexpectedly. He told me vaguely that he had been mixing his drinks - that was another way of putting it.

this implies that he has been keeping mixed company in some way. perhaps in espionage, or bad business.

i don't know if "mixing his drinks" as a euphemism for being drunk was common use. my guess is that it was not; that people would certainly have understood it (based on the received wisdom that one should not do so), but that it was also used later in the book to echo back to this first use.

[did you post the earlier question on greene? i really need to go back and read him again. it's been years.... is he having a resurgence?]
posted by andrewcooke at 7:25 AM on July 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Just watched the Orson Wells film and there is an overall atmosphere of rootlessness and uncertainty as well as the main character mixing work with love. This gets him into trouble. I can see "mixing his drinks" as an allusion to his emotional and moral dilemmas.
posted by Castellija123 at 7:27 AM on July 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've read the book, always took the phrase to imply getting involved in a love affair that ends up more trouble than it is worth, and used it in that manner when I was younger.
posted by vrakatar at 7:33 AM on July 18, 2016

Best answer: this implies that he has been keeping mixed company in some way. perhaps in espionage, or bad business.

Or going about with more than one woman. I don't think this would have been a common usage of the time, but it makes metaphorical sense, as flagged by the "that was another way of putting it."
posted by praemunire at 7:54 AM on July 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

I agree with the above posters that this seems to be more euphemistic than direct, referring to the mixing of business/pleasure, or mixing two parts of your life that should, in your best interest, stay separate. In that regard, it starts to remind me of other idioms like "It's an ill bird that fouls its own nest."
posted by pepper bird at 10:25 AM on July 18, 2016