wild about Rappaccini's daughter (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Wilson Gray]

Once, a German acquaintance kiddingly took a pen from me and, when I
tried to get it back, she said, "Wird wild!" I didn't understand what
she meant - well, I understood the words, but the words clearly had
some idiomatic meaning under that circumstance that I didn't
understand and which she didn't have the English to explain. So Bill
help me out, here. I've been confused about this since 1961.

-Wilson

On Feb 13, 2008 11:07 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC <Bill.Mullins at us.army.mil> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject:      Re: wild about Rappaccini's daughter (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
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>
> German for "crazy" is "wild".  Do you suppose this usage of English
> "wild" comes from the German, rather than a reworking of the English
> word?
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society
> > [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Joel S. Berson
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 9:36 AM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: Re: wild about Rappaccini's daughter
> >
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      Re: wild about Rappaccini's daughter
> > --------------------------------------------------------------
> > -----------------
> >
> > At 2/13/2008 09:38 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> > >OED has "wild," 11.c, from Jane Austen "a1817."  Yet it
> > lacks any U.S.
> > >exx. (as far as I can tell) and has no ex. constr. with "about"
> > >till 1868.  Tsk.
> > >
> > >   1844 Nathaniel Hawthorne in _The United States Democratic
> > Review_
> > > (Dec.) 549: You have heard of this daughter, whom all the
> > young men in
> > > Padua are wild about.
> >
> > Hmph!  How did I miss that in my thorough reading of all of
> > Hawthorne's short stories about 5 years ago?  (I'm waiting
> > anxiously for Hawthorne's "salt" = experienced sailor to
> > enter OED3, antedating Dana's _Two Years Before the Mast_ by
> > five years.)
> >
> > But a search of the OED2 CD-ROM turns up, under "stark, a. and adv.":
> >
> > a1721 Prior _Poems, Cromwell & Porter_ 281 You may study
> > among the Law givers without being stark wild about
> > Ordinances and Proclamations.
> >
> > Not American, though.
> >
> > Joel
> >
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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