Wouldn’t driving wrecklessly be, in general, a good thing?
I agree with you completely and your logic is unimpeachable. Which raises the question: why are the “Drunken Disorderly” (or for those who obsessively prefer, “Drunk AND Disorderly”) laws classed as “Public Intoxication” laws? Perhaps I should have posted this elsewhere under “Obvious Things I Just Realized”. I know one thing that added to my confusion is that our local paper publishes arrests and sentences and I know that people get sentenced to fines and sometimes jail for “Public Intoxication.” I am now convinced, however, that that only occurs after more serious charges have been pled down. Or when coupled with another charge.
Yup. That would be a very good thing. As would driving with undue care and attention (rather than without due care and attention). No harm in having more care and attention than is necessary! 
In fact, they’re one in the same.
Right, but I think that’s what we call in Michigan, “Open Intox.” The kid’s problem was drinking in public (i.e. on public property), not being drunk in public. It’s also illegal for me to have an open can of beer in my car, but an unopened one is fine.
[quote=“thelurkinghorror, post:18, topic:708573”]
For all intensive purposes, they’re the same thing.
I saw what you did there. Intensive indeed!
I saw that, too.
Etc, etc.
Don’t know what the law calls it, but I am so claiming DrunkenDisorderly as my alternative handle, should I ever get tired of SeldomSeen
Loves me some alliteration, I do.
SS
Ah, you could well be right. I thought it might be a puritanical wrinkle in the law.
I’d have to talk to my friend for details. I thought she said it was a more serious infraction but she can get a little overwrought about this sort of thing.
Intents and purposes. Not “intensive purposes.”
/nit pick.
I had a friend in Michigan get pinched for drunken disorderly. He was drinking in a park with his friends after one of them won big in a poker game - that dude was a card shark. Irregardless, when the Rollos came up in him, they all went on the lamb but fell while trying to jump over a bob wire fence. So he got coughed and stuffed, and while on the way to the who’s cow, he complained that his buddies left him behind. The cop told him that’s how you tell your friends in this doggy dog world. Turns out the whole episode was a blessing in the skies, because he went to Alcoholics Eponymous soon after, got cleaned up, and the judge took pity on him and made the whole criminal case mute.
This is the interwebs. That should read “their one in the same.”
Well, supposively they are…:dubious:
Whoosh, right? You intended that misspelling, right?
OK, I am slow on the uptake sometimes.
Well played. 
The charge is trouble, irregardless.
Everyone understands that this is an eggcorn, right? Because if the expression really were, “One in the same,” and not, “One and the same,” What the hell would that possibly mean?
And this, this is just mind-bottling.
Well, you should distinguish between the “lay terminology” and the actual statute that people get charged with. The media will use that kind of language because usage, tradition, and social norms have come to imply that some kind of disorderly conduct is involved, (and also I think to imply that the behavior is worse and worthy of a citation because alcohol was involved).
In the same way, I don’t think there is any law that is literally titled “drunk driving,” or even “driving under the influence.” If you look at DUI statutes, they always include the blood alcohol content connected to vehicle operation in the wording of the law itself, and that measurement of BAC is almost always necessary for a conviction.
If a state or city wants to make simply being “intoxicated” in public illegal, it has to define how much BAC constitutes “intoxication” or “drunkenness.” But how can the cops just go up to someone who is, say, sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper and acting perfectly normal, and demand a breathylizer test? They have to have some kind of behavior (or an open container present) to justify that kind of serach. And in any case, if a person is drunk enough, in a way they can’t be orderly no matter how hard they try–they can’t walk straight, they fall down, etc. Even if a person is not bothering anyone, I believe there are laws which allow the police to take someone into custody at least for their own protection, if that person is perceptibly incapacitated. In such cases, though, they usually don’t get charged with anything.
So I think it’s going to be hard to find a case of a person who in every way is acting totally normal and then getting busted solely for “public intoxication” in the strict sense of the word.
Exactly the same as drunken disorderly.
[quote=“Grotonian, post:26, topic:708573”]
You know what an eggcorn is, but persist with the stupidity of your OP shtik.
Moving this to another forum. Pretty close to trolling.
samclem, moderator