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Cathryn Grant

Suburban Noir

Madness

Mad: Are both uses becoming archaic?

People don't often say "she's mad" any more, they note that she's angry. We aren't even insane these days. Just dysfunctional or addicted to one thing or another, or possibly mentally unstable.

What is madness? What is insanity? I'm fascinated by the line, sometimes a very thin line, between commonly accepted "sane" behavior and madness. Most of the time, we hold madness at bay. But what if? And that's the stuff of fiction.

Definitions of mad on the Web:

  • huffy: roused to anger; "stayed huffy a good while"- Mark Twain; "she gets mad when you wake her up so early"; "mad at his friend"; "sore over a ...
  • brainsick: affected with madness or insanity; "a man who had gone mad"
  • delirious: marked by uncontrolled excitement or emotion; "a crowd of delirious baseball fans"; "something frantic in their gaiety"; "a mad whirl of pleasure"
  • harebrained: very foolish; "harebrained ideas"; "took insane risks behind the wheel"; "a completely mad scheme to build a bridge between two mountains"