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Why do we do drugs but have food? Or even have a beer, which is alcoholic beverage thus a sort of drug too. In both cases we consume something. Is there a rule for this?

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Also note that we could take tea. Or take drugs for that matter. – z7sg Ѫ May 28 '11 at 13:03
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If ketamine's your thing then you can do drugs and have breakfast at the same time. – boehj May 28 '11 at 13:29
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boehj, I guess the same counts for doing (or is it having) a wake and bake.. – TweeZz May 28 '11 at 20:43
@TweeZz - Ha ha... yeh I guess so. :) – boehj May 28 '11 at 23:37
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A question with this title would be way funnier on the Health and Fitness site.. – Brendan Long May 29 '11 at 6:35
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up vote 25 down vote accepted

Well, it gets even more curious than that. We can "have lunch" or we can "eat lunch" or we can even "do lunch":

We need to talk. Let's do lunch. How's Thursday?

Add to that phrases like:

Beer me.

This means "Give me/get me/hand me a beer."

There's really no rule you can apply to idiomatic expressions like these. Non-native speakers just have to learn them one by one, and they can be extremely vexing at times. It's enough to drive you to drink!

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+1 - Nice answer Mr R. – boehj May 28 '11 at 13:27
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Doing lunch? I thought only marketing people did that, not real human beings. – TRiG May 29 '11 at 1:18
Also, of course, idioms vary from place to place. You may carefully learn "Hit me" meaning "Give me a beer" in a US bar, but if you use it in my local the barmaid will probably shrug and punch you (particularly if you are a marketing person). – TimLymington Jan 6 '12 at 15:25

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