Language of Confusion: Crazy

Because… something.

Craze showed up in the late fourteenth century as a verb meaning to shatter, crush, or break into pieces, and not meaning insane until a century later, which is also when craze showed up as a noun (meaning to break down in health). Fun fact, the “break into pieces” definition really only survives in the term “crazy quilt”, a quilt made up of random pieces of fabric. As to why it was made a term for mental health… well, going crazy really does seem like a shattering of the mind. As for the origin of craze, no one really knows except that it might be Germanic or possibly Scandinavian (the Old Norse word for shatter is krasa). It also appeared in Old French as crasir, which exists in Modern French as écraser, to crush.

Fanatic showed up in the mid sixteenth century meaning insane person, coming from the classical Latin fanaticus, which generally just means fanatic. It’s from the word fanum, temple, and related to festus, holiday. Basically, if you were fanatical about something, you took celebrating it way too far. It’s also the probable origin of the word fan—as in, a fan of something—although that showed up in 1889 as a word for baseball enthusiasts.

Next today, eccentric. It showed up in the early fifteenth century as an old astronomy term meaning a “circle or orbit not having the Earth precisely at its center”. It actually didn’t mean an odd person until 1817! It comes from the Middle French eccentrique and Medieval Latin eccentricus, from the Greek ekkentros. That word was meant as the opposite of concentric (having the same center) and is a mix of ek—out—and kentron—center. Eccentric is off of center.

I’m sure you’re all aware that lunatic is related to the moon. It’s kind of obvious. But let’s actually learn about the word, shall we? It showed up in the late thirteenth century meaning periodic insanity dependent on changes in the moon—that’s where the luna part comes from. The word itself is from the Old French lunatique, insane, and Late Latin lunaticus, moon-struck. Well, it’s still a sounder psychiatric theory than lobotomies.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

Dictionary of Medieval Latin

University of Ottawa, Canada

Orbis Latinus

Language of Confusion: The Moon

The sun had its turn, so now it’s time for the moon.

Moon

Moon used to be mona (no, not related to the name, like at all) in Old English, and before that it was menon- in Proto Germanic, and then in Proto Indo European it was me(n)ses-, which  meant both moon and month and of course is where month comes from. In fact me(n)ses comes from me-, which means “to measure”, because the phases of the moon used to be a standard of time (which you were probably aware of; one cycle of the moon used to be one month).

Lunar

Lunar showed up in the early fifteenth century meaning crescent-shaped—it didn’t actually refer to the moon until the seventeenth century! At least, not in English. It’s from the Old French lunaire, which is from the classical Latin lunaris, relating to the moon. Interestingly the word luna showed up before lunar, coming about in the late fourteenth century and actually meaning the moon, coming from the Roman goddess Luna. The word can actually be traced back to the Proto Indo European leuksna-, from leuk-, light (and the origin for most light related words). And hey, the reason lunatic is obviously related is because when it showed up in the late thirteenth century it meant someone with periodic insanity caused by the changes of the moon. In fact it comes from the Late Latin llunaticus, moon-struck.

Selene

Selene of course is the Greek equivalent of Luna and although English uses the Latin goddess more, Selene still pops up in places. Selenium, for example, was named for the moon. Selene can also be traced to the Proto Indo European swell-, to shine or beam, and gave us the words swelter and sultry. So. You know. That’s a thing.

Sources

Online Etymology Dictionary

Google Translate

Omniglot

University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center

University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language

Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English

Old English-English Dictionary

Orbis Latinus

Encyclopedia Mythica