The "Drunk-Dial"

Now this may be the best reason yet to keep your city dry.

Ryan Little was feeling a little tipsy one recent night. He decided to call "this girl Diane" he knew from college.

Unfortunately, his fingers were also a bit woozy as they walked across the cell phone keys.

When his call went through, he started talking, flirtatiously and without stopping, for a full four minutes. Unfortunately, it wasn't Diane on the other end.

"I hit my Dad's number instead," the Baltimore resident said.

Increasingly common with the proliferation of cell phones and their free midnight minutes, the drunk-dial has become a national pastime, and tonight untold numbers of drinkers will ring in the new year - perhaps in more ways than one. Some call these calls pathetic - particularly those made to exes - but others laud them as an outlet for spontaneous expression that at least is a whole lot healthier than many other drunken activities.

According to the Word Spy, a Web site that tracks new vocabulary, the term "drunk-dial" is both a verb and a noun (as in, "I got his drunk-dial"), but only applies to communications that are somehow embarrassing or absurd. One drunk-dials to emote, excoriate, declare, confide or proposition, often at a grossly inappropriate hour.