[Ads-l] Neglected Popular Sense of "Schizophrenia" and "Schizophrenic"

[Shapiro, Fred]

Yeah, Chris is correct.  I'm a busier person than most of the people on this list, and I sometimes hastily make postings that are half-baked or less-than-half-baked.

Now I realize that the "popular" sense of "schizophrenia" / "schizophrenic" is broader than "split personality" and involves contradictoriness more generally.  I also realize that Merriam-Webster does cover this sense, and that the OED covers it in the entry on "schizophrenic."  My one point that is valid is that the OED entry for "schizophrenia" does not explicitly define the popular sense (although it is implied in some of the OED's "transferred" citations).

Fred Shapiro


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From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Chris Waigl <chris at LASCRIBE.NET>
Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2022 10:52 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Neglected Popular Sense of "Schizophrenia" and "Schizophrenic"

On Tue, Sep 13, 2022 at 6:34 PM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:

> Both OED and Merriam-Webster seem to completely neglect an extremely
> widespread popular sense of the words "schizophrenia" and "schizophrenic."
> This sense is the meaning "split personality."  Although that meaning is
> scientifically incorrect, I believe that, at least in the U.S., it is the
> predominant popular definition.
>

I'm not sure what you mean by this, outside some rather dated fictional
stories along the lines of Dr. Jekyll & Mr Hyde or Hitchcock's Psycho. In
common contemporary parlance I think the predominant popular definition is
more along the lines of "jarringly paradoxical" or "internally
contradictory". (I base this purely on anecdote-level personal observation,
not scientific research - disclaimer.)

Chris

--
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