LL-L "Idiomatica" 2007.09.30 (03) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  30 September 2007 - Volume 03
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Idiomatica

Oops! Sorry! I got Sandy's message wrong.

Reinhard/Ron

----------

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Idiomatica" 2007.09.30 (01) [E]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Idiomatica
>
> Back to English ... Another idiomatic difference in American and
> non-American English is that "mad" now means "angry" in the former and
> mostly still original "insane" in the latter.  Obviously, this can
> lead to between speakers of these varieties misunderstanding each
> other.

This might be an influence of Scots on American English, because in
Scots, "mad" pretty much always means "angry".

In Scots there are various circumlocutions for describing the mentally
ill (in the old-fashioned rather indiscriminate sense), such as "no
wyce" (not wise), "daft in the heid", "no juist richt (in the heid)".

I can't seem to think how we'd say "to go potty" in Scots. The Scots
expression "he gaed aff his heid" means "he lost his temper", while
someone who's "aff his heid" is doing something crazy but isn't
necessarily crazy himself - he might just be making an error of
judgement like borrowing more than he can afford to go on holiday or
something.

It does seem hard to separate mental illness and anger in Scots
vocabulary and idiom (allowing some out-of-date and politically
incorrect terms here):

Mentally Ill      "He Became Angry"
------------      ---------------
mental            He went mental.
daft              He went daft.
crazy             He went crazy.
aff his heid      He went aff his heid.

Possibly this tends to make it difficult to say something like "he went
potty" in Scots because suddenly turning into a lunatic is taken to
imply that it's an otherwise sane person acting like a lunatic out of
anger, rather than accepting the idea that a sane person can actually
turn into a lunatic?

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

•

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