Craziness #2
Though it shows poor form to question someone’s sanity, we
English speakers have a steaming heap of ways to do just that. Last week’s post on synonyms for crazy didn’t even begin to plumb the
depths, so here are some more.
In
the 1300s the word daffe was used to mean half-witted.
Daffe
is the likely parent of daffy, which showed up in 1884. Daffy
might alternatively have come from the word daft, which initially
meant gentle & becoming, mild,
well-mannered, & came from a Proto-Indo-European word meaning to fit together. We can see this older meaning
in the modern meaning of daft’s sister-word deft.
Over the course of 300 years the well-mannered
meaning of daft morphed to mean dull
& awkward, then foolish,
& then crazy.
Barmy comes from the alehouse. Barm
is an Old English word meaning yeast,
leaven or the head on a beer. In the 1530s the literal adjective barmy
was born, meaning frothy. 1600 saw
the birth of the figurative barmy, bubbling with excitement, & in 1892, a second figurative barmy
began to mean foolish or crazy.
In 1853 the American English word loony came to be. Though
it was simply a shortening of the word lunatic, it may have been influenced
by the wild, cackling call of the loon &/or its unlikely and
mysterious manner of escaping danger. Loons can dive to depths of 200 feet
& can stay underwater for up to three minutes – a crazy feat indeed.
Mad made its way into English in the
later 1200s, meaning out of one’s mind.
It came through Proto-Germanic from the Proto-Indo European moito-, meaning to change. The angry
meaning of mad showed up in the 1300s. Some mad idioms include: mad
as a march hare (1520s), mad as a wet hen (1823),
mad
as a hatter (1829), & mad scientist (1891).
I’m hoping you’ve got something to say about all this madness.
If so, please do so in the comments section.
Big thanks to this week’s sources:
Etymonline, Wordnik, Merriam-Webster, Wisconsin Natural Resources, & the OED.
My UK editor was so scornful when i wrote "balmy" for "barmy". (They do pronounce them the same.) But now I'll remember it means "beer head". Ha!
ReplyDeleteI've heard that "lunatic" may also come from the French word "lune" meaning moon. This was supposedly because the full moon makes people loony. Maybe that's been debunked, but it's a good story.
Hi Anne,
DeleteYes, indeed, the word lunatic comes through French & translates to "moonstruck". Thanks so much for coming by & having something to say. I suppose a visit to the bar for some barmy might be particularly nice if the day is balmy, eh?
I haven't been by for a couple of weeks because my life has been a bit loony lately. You have to be mad as a hatter to do the kind of traveling and running around as I have been doing.
ReplyDeleteHey Christine - welcome back from The Land of Loony. May you feel as though life is as relaxing as a cold beer with a big, barmy head.
ReplyDelete