Sheer Madness

So many ways of saying ‘crazy’, so let’s take an etymologist’s look at their origins. (I must be mad….)

Crazy originally meant ‘diseased, sickly, when first seen in the 1570s, by the following decade the use had changed to ‘broken, impaired’, and the modern ‘of unsound mind’ first appears around 1610.

Berserk, or more often berserker, referred to a Norse warrior around 1835, having been introduced by Sir Walter Scott in The Pirate in 1822. It is derived from the Old Norse and originally meant ‘a warrior in a bearskin’.

Mad has had the modern meaning since the 13th century. It originated from Proto-Indo-European mei ‘to change’.

Insane, first seen in the middle of the 16th century, is older than the opposite of ‘sane’ which doesn’t appear until 1721.

Bonkers dates from 1948, derived from the idea that a ‘bonk’ (on the head) would render one senseless. Note from 1957, ‘bonkers’ was British naval slang for ‘slightly drunk’.

Out to lunch is first seen in 1955, the idea being to convey that a person ‘wasn’t there’.

Fruitcake is used to describe one of questionable sanity from 1952. Nutty as a fruitcake predates the shorter version, appearing in the 1930s. Confusing, but correct for traditional fruitcake contained fruit and nuts.

Unstable is first seen at the beginning of the 13th century, when it was used solely to mean ‘liable to fall’.

Lunatic appears in the late 13th century, coming from the Latin luna as the moon has long been related to questionable sanity.

Barking, an abbreviation of ‘barking mad’, first appears in 1925 and alludes to an association with mad or rabid dogs.

Non compos mentis first appears in English law in 1607 in the writings of John Cowell.

Mad as a March hare is likely to have first appeared in the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer in 1368, but did not gain widespread popularity until the publication of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Mad as a hatter appears in 1829, much earlier than Lewis Carroll’s work in 1865. Hatters used mercuric nitrate to process fur for felt hats, this known to cause neurological problems at times.

Batty appears first in 1899.

Stark raving is attributed to playwright John Beaumont in the 1640s, but popularity had to wait until 1734 and Henry Fielding’s The Intriguing Chambermaid

Doolally is British slang first appearing in 1917, correctly doolally tap this being the Urdu for ‘fever’ in the military camp of Deolali near Bombay, India established in 1861.

Not the full shilling first appears in the 1970s, which is also the time the shilling became decimalized as five pence.

Away with the fairies became popular in the late 19th century, but had been in use in Scotland since 1636 when appearing in a poem as ‘dance with the fairies’.

Out of one’s tree has been used since the mid 1960s, when it also referred to intoxication.

Gaga appears in 1920, coming from the French meaning ‘senile’.

Bananas is used in this context for the first time in 1968 – earlier, since 1935, it described sexual perversion.

Loco is American slang from 1844, coming from the Spanish with the same meaning.

Insults

Having been called a ‘wazzock’ recently – purely a friendly barb, I can assure you – I wondered about its etymology and if there were other regional insults which might prove of interesting derivation.

Wazzock may be a contraction of ‘wiseacre’, one who thinks himself wise. There is also the theory it refers to an instrument used to remove royal excrement from a window – which hardly seems likely as it is surely far too specific.

Lummox is a word originating around East Anglia, first seen in 1825, it is most likely a derivative of ‘lummock’ meaning to move heavily or clumsily.

Numpty began in Scotland, this from an older term ‘numps’ meaning ‘fool’.

Plonker is a term first seen in 1862, when the reference seems to suggest extraordinary substance or depth – ie ‘thiock’.

Git is first seen in 1946, a variant of Scottish get ‘illegitimate child or brat’, itself first recorded in 1706.

Prat is suggesting someone has the intellect of a buttock – for that is exactly what ‘prat’ meant, although today we only use ‘pratfall’.

Tosspot is first used in the 1560s when it referred to a heavy drinker.

Berk is an abbreviation of ‘Berkshire hunt’, an example of rhyming slang.

Muppet, coined by Jim Henson for his famous characters including Kermit and Miss Piggy, said to be a combination of marionette and puppet. He trademarked the term on 26th September 1972, although the term had been used in November 1956 – a sketch saw Kermit in drag singing I’ve Grown Accustomed to Your Face to a skull in a Hamlet spoof. As a derogatory term it is possible the modern ‘muppet’ is simply from ‘moppet’, used to mean ‘rag doll’, ‘baby’, ‘girl’ in various periods of history.

Wally seems to have originated in Scotland where, from 1969, it described ‘an unfashionable person’ before becoming a more general insult.

Doughnut seems to have begun in the London and southeast of England in the early 1970s. One strong possibility is this came from the children’s television series The Double Deckers, where the character named Doughnut was seen as rather overweight and of limited intelligence.

Pillock, as an insult, can be traced to 1967. However, the term comes from much earlier and is seen in the 13th century as a surname. Mr and Mrs Pillock might not have been overly happy about this, as the term comes from Middle English pillicock or ‘penis’.

Dipstick was first used as an insult in the 1920s, although ‘dip’ was at least as common as ‘dipshit’. Dipstick is yet another euphemism for ‘penis’.

Nutter is first used as an insult in 1958; earlier a ‘nuttery’ had been a slang term for a ‘mental hospital’ from 1931.

Wobbler is derived from ‘wobble’, suggesting someone is unstable, and has been used as an insult since the early 18th century. Certainly going to be using this term as it really needs to make a comeback.

Turnip has been used by two of England’s greatest literary figures – Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare. (I’m so tempted to suggest I could make it three - you turnip!)

Pudding is to refer to someone as overweight, although it is not overly clear when it came into use. What is clear is Virginia Woolf considered referring to a dessert as a pudding to be the ultimate insult.

Thick was originally thick-skulled, suggesting it was difficult to get much in there, and thick-skinned was also used the same way shortly afterwards during the 16th century.

Daft has been used as an insult since the early 14th century; a hundred years earlier it had been used to mean ‘mild-mannered’ or ‘gentle, becoming’. The word later was seen as daffe meaning ‘fool, idiot’.

Dense was not used as an insult until 1732.

Gormless has been used since 1746 to mean ‘stupid’. Of course we don’t use ‘gorm’ to describe anything; but gome was used to mean ‘understanding’ from around 1200.

Dimwit is US college slang from 1922.

Pea brain seems to have come into being at some point after the Second World War.

Div is a shortened version of ‘divot’, itself from ‘clod’, and has been used as an insult since the 1960s.

Nitwit is fairly easy to as a compound word, it is thought to have been coined by David G Phillips in his writings published in 1910.

Plank is solid and unyielding, much as a person who fails to grasp an idea, and seems to have appeared around the start of the 20th century.

Bugger is thought to have originated in the Bogomils, an heretical sect founded in Bulgaria.

Twit was first used as an insult in the 1920s, but the word is much older having appeared in the 1520s when it meant ‘to blame, reproach’.

Nincompoop has certainly been around since 1680 – seen as nincompoop, nincompoop, nickum-poop - and appears in the 1699 Dictionary of the Canting Crew when it is defined as ‘a silly, soft, uxorious fellow’.

Sod is first used in print in 1818, it’s an abbreviated form of ‘sodomite’.

Nob began as an insult in the early 18th century, as we would expect it is a reference to male genitalia.

Legend

It is quite unusual to find a word with two quite different meanings when it is not a mono-syllabic or simplistic word. Legend is one such word and, in order to discover why, we will look at the etymologies.

Most often we see ‘legend’ used as a synonym for myth or folklore; but it is also used to describe a title or banner.

First coming to English in the early 14th century it referred to ‘a narrative dealing with an event.’ This came from Old French legend, itself from Medieval Latin legenda, most often these stories would have been those related to saints and would have been read in religious places.

These religious readings saw the use tweaked a little and the meaning seen as ‘things to be read’. Such reflects the root of Proto-Indo-European leg ‘to collect, gather’ and later ‘to pick out words’.

This then leads to the other meaning of ‘writing or inscription’, which has been seen since the 1610s when referring to the wording on maps – such as those produced by John Speed.

No change or developments for centuries until, around 1958, the phrase ‘legend in one’s own time’ (and variations on same) appears.

Crow

Why are there so many idioms and phrases including 'crow'? While crows, indeed all the corvid family, are known for their intelligence, it would seem more likely that these creatures are associated with all manner of myths and superstitions which has resulted in them being found in so many idioms.

Eat crow is an American phrase used to suggest one should put up with it. This is born of the idea that the flesh of the bird is edible, albeit probably not desirable. The phrase is found from the 1870s, and in the early years as often seen as ‘eat boiled crow’.

Crow’s feet, the lines at corner of the eye, have been described as such since 1385 when they appear in the writings of no less a literary giant than Chaucer.

To crow, as in to boast, today is seen as the sound made by a rooster, but originally this referred to the sound of a crow and continued to do so until at least the 16th century.

Scarecrows, the name self-explanatory, have been known as such since the 1550s but then it was an actual human employed to do the job. The straw figure came into use around the end of the 16th century. Earlier the same figure was referred to as a ‘shewel’, also found are fray-boggard, skerel, and shoy-hoy.

Crowsnest, the look-out high on a mast of a ship, is not found until 1818 – probably used beforehand but beware history authors putting them into their works set in the 18th century and earlier.

Pilcrow is a now obsolete term, but will be found in documents used to refer to a paragraph mark or an asterisk.

Crowbars have been named as such since at least 1748, although prior to that it was simply known as a crow.

As mentioned the amount of folklore associated with the crow family is remarkable. Magpies carry a drop of the devil’s blood under their tongue; a crow over a house foretells a death within that home; three magpies seen together is seen as unlucky (or death); five crows together promises sickness; crows in a churchyard are a bad omen; two crows flying from the left is bad luck (just face the other way!); the French once believed evil priests became crows and bad nuns were turned into magpies; Go to crows was used instead of Go to hell by the Greeks; I have a bone to pick with you used to be I have a crow to pick with you; the Irish expression ‘You’ll follow the crows for it’ meant a person would miss something when it’s gone; in Somerset folk would carry an onion to ward off the ills of crows and magpies; in Wales it was unlucky to have a crow cross your path; and when crows were quiet during their summer moult, it was believed they were preparing their plumage to meet the devil.