You remind me of a sailor I saw the other day. Jack was already "half seas over," when he went into Smith's and called for an ounce of old tangle-legs. Thinks I, what is that? So I kept my eye on the scales, but Smith understood him; so he gave him a glass, you see, and off he went. But, dear me, I guess it was tangle-legs! First he went this way; and then that, zigzag, like a Virginia fence, till his legs got into a complete tangle, and down he went.
Source: wiktionary