crazy/insane gradation

[Wilson Gray]

Aren't _galluses_ suspenders? If so, the semantic connection is transparent.

-Wilson

On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 7:01 PM, Robin Hamilton
<robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at BTINTERNET.COM>
> Subject:      Re: crazy/insane gradation
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>
> There's also the Glasgow term, "metal", which carries a wholly different set
> of connotations.
>
> You treat hard men with wary respect, but run a mile when you encounter
> someone who's mental.
>
> It partly correlates with the ON term, "berserker".
>
> Robin
>
>> remember that when we see someone do, for instance, a double-twisting
>> triple flip in the aerials in the Olympics, we may say "That's
>> insane!" with admiration. There is, I think, a measure of awe or fear
>> in "insane" that is lacking in "crazy."
>>
>> James Harbeck.
>
> Isn't this a case of virtually any extreme adjective shifting in
> metaphorical use to a general intensifier?
>
> I'm thinking of "gallows" here (sometime, in both America and Glasgow,
> "gallus")?
>
> Nothing to do with the tree they hang people from, though the flash girls of
> the city might beg to differ.
>
> R.
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
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.
–Mark Twain

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