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

[Mark Mandel]

Same here as Laurence's recollection, mostly in the sixties and (IIRC)
beyond.

On Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 11:34 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> AHD5 has this somewhat censorious Usage Note:
>
> Usage Note: Mental health advocates point out that the figurative use of
> schizophrenic to mean “displaying disparate or antagonistic elements”
> arises from misconceptions about schizophrenia and that this figurative use
> impedes efforts to educate the public about schizophrenia.
>
> When I was growing up and first becoming acquainted with the term, I did
> indeed gather it referred to split personality or what I later learned
> should be called multiple personality disorder.  This would have been in
> the 1950s. Webster’s NID3 (1961) has “split personality” as the second
> sense for “schizophrenia” after the (much longer) psychiatrically correct
> (at the time) first sense.
>
> LH
>
>
> > On Sep 13, 2022, at 10:52 PM, Chris Waigl <chris at LASCRIBE.NET> wrote:
> >
> > 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
> >
> > --
> > Chris Waigl . chris.waigl at gmail.com . chris at lascribe.net
> > http://eggcorns.lascribe.net . http://chryss.eu
> >
>

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