Thanks to Sen. Lindsey Graham<\/a> \u2014 and now also to Trump media surrogate Scottie Nell Hughes<\/a> \u2014 the salty, but expressive, idiom \u201cbatshit\u201d is having something of a moment.<\/p>\n This is, of course, a\u00a0word you\u2019re not supposed\u00a0to say on live TV or in front of the children, but it\u2019s spiking in use these days for the same reason that any word does: because of its precision and thus its necessity<\/em>. We are seeing something in our politics, exemplified in the juvenile free-for-all of this week\u2019s Republican presidential primary debate, and we need to identify it. We need to classify what it is we\u2019re seeing and to articulate that to ourselves and to others so that we can calibrate an appropriate response.<\/p>\n The English language provides a multitude of potential adjectives to classify this moment in Republican politics, many of which, unfortunately, draw implicit or explicit analogies to mental illness. Using those words pejoratively can be both rude and harmful \u2014 stigmatizing people who have mental illness. But in addition to being offensive, they\u2019re unsatisfying because they\u2019re inaccurate and imprecise. The whatever-we-call-it behavior we\u2019re actually seeing in Republican primary politics isn\u2019t actually\u00a0analogous to the behavior of people with mental illness. The former is shameful<\/em>, the latter is not and should not be shamed by association.** So those words won\u2019t do here. Even if using a word like \u201cinsane\u201d weren\u2019t hurtful, the word still wouldn\u2019t apply\u00a0because this behavior is something other than that.<\/p>\n Other, more detached,\u00a0attempts to say that same sort of thing won\u2019t really do either. Words like \u201cirrational\u201d\u00a0may be accurate up to a point, but they seem incomplete. So we reach for more colorful terms that might do a better job of containing the multivaried aspects of what we\u2019re watching. The irrationality, yes, but also the coarseness of it, the spectacle of it, the elements of rage and of misapprehension (in both senses), the realization\u00a0that it\u2019s out of control and that no one knows how to rein it back in.<\/p>\n And so thousands of observers flung adjectives in the direction of this thing until, finally, someone said \u201cbatshit\u201d and the aptness and clarity of that term rang like a bell. (Sen. Graham was far from the first to use the term, but\u00a0his prominence as a senator helped spread its use among the punditocracy and the chattering classes.)<\/p>\n The term works here, I think, partly because a coarse word is necessary to capture a coarse and coarsening phenomenon. Trumpism \u2014 and the attempts of Cruz, Rubio, et. al.<\/em> to out-Trump Trump \u2014 is partly a willingness to say repugnant\u00a0things out loud that manners, mores, morals, and decency previously prevented anyone from saying in such contexts. A word that refers to something repugnant, and that is itself something we\u2019re not supposed to say, conveys that better than a more polite term could.<\/p>\n The word articulates the mood and the moment so perfectly that it seems to have separated observers and commenters into two camps: Those now applying the term to identify what we\u2019re seeing, and those scrupulously and uncomfortably avoiding doing so.<\/p>\n And but so anyway, where did this lovely-in-its-unloveliness idiom come from? I would\u2019ve guessed that it originated with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. It just sounds like something he would have written. But the first usage cited by the Oxford English Dictionary<\/em> is from a more infamous source. It cites Lt. William Calley, the American soldier who oversaw a massacre of civilians in My Lai, Vietnam, who spoke of soldiers \u201cgoing batshit.\u201d The OED<\/em> says this was\u00a0military slang dating back to the 1950s, a variant of the earlier \u201capeshit,\u201d which may derive from the feces-flinging behavior of some stressed captive primates.<\/p>\n I\u2019m leaning here on\u00a0\u201cLexie Kahn,\u201d the awesomely nicknamed \u201cword snoop\u201d\u00a0exploring the etymology of \u201cbatshit\u201d in this 2013 blog post<\/a>. See also this post at\u00a0English Language & Usage, which has the full citation from the OED<\/em><\/a>, along with additional speculation about the evolution of this term. The discussion there speculates that batshit likely incorporates the connotations of \u201cbatty\u201d and \u201cbats in the belfry.\u201d<\/p>\n Since batshit comes from military slang, I think it may also allude to the old saying about mushrooms which, like low-ranking soldiers, are \u201ckept in the dark and fed shit.\u201d But that\u2019s just a guess, and I\u2019m not sure if that joke actually predates the adoption of \u201cbatshit\u201d in the 1950s.<\/p>\n What I was surprised to learn, delving into this etymology, is that our distinctions of shades of meaning for various animal prefixes \u2014 bull-, bat-, ape-, etc. \u2014 are a fairly recent development. The use of shit in the Pauline sense \u2014 meaning something filthy and worthless \u2014 goes way, way back, and it wasn\u2019t unusual for speakers to add some animal prefix for a bit of flair, yet we hadn\u2019t yet settled on a taxonomy of various meanings for those various things. Thus, for example, although the 19th century had a rich vocabulary for P.T. Barnum\u2019s balderdash, hornswoggle, hogwash and hokum, we hadn\u2019t yet settled on bullshit<\/em> as specifically referring to that kind of malarkey. That came later.<\/p>\n We can find early uses of batshit to mean what we would now refer to as bullshit, but that usage didn\u2019t last because language doesn\u2019t require two words for the same thing. And so now the two terms have clearly distinct meanings. We might describe that distinction by saying that someone who believes and embraces too much bullshit will consequently go batshit, and that having to deal with such a person will so tax one\u2019s patience that one may be tempted to go apeshit in response. Oddly, both of these folks \u2014 the one who has gone batshit and the one who has gone apeshit in response \u2014 can be said to have lost their shit<\/em>. And yet, should they both calm down and regain their bearings, neither will be said to have thereby found<\/em> their shit.<\/p>\n The actual origins of this term and its usage may be less significant than its\u00a0retroactive<\/em> etymology. Etymology \u2014 the root meaning and original meaning of words \u2014 tends to get carried along in the connotations of those words, even after those root meanings and origins have fallen away from its later denotation. But sometimes the arrow points in the other direction and usage creates a new root-meaning projected back onto the word, and that retroactive origin comes to shape its connotations.<\/p>\n Think, for example, of how flounder<\/em> has come to be used as a verb. This originated as a corruption of the verb founder<\/em>, which was usually applied to ships disabled and sinking on a rock or a reef, but also, by extension and analogy, could be applied to anything or anyone in a similar sinking state. The invention of the airplane cut us off from a lot of maritime language and now that use of the verb founder is mainly only found in old books. Today,\u00a0we flounder instead of founder and the implicit analogy is no longer a comparison to a ship sinking on a reef but to a fish out of water, flailing and flopping and gasping in its death throes.<\/p>\n I suspect that, similarly, the connotations of batshit derive more from its retroactive etymology than its technical origin. It suggests, I think, something rank and foul-smelling that has been festering at the bottom of a cave.\u00a0(There\u2019s also the matter of bat- as a prefix, which carries a whole other set of literary allusions for\u00a0many of us \u2014 a touch\u00a0of Gotham\u2019s corruption and criminality, and maybe just a hint\u00a0of Arkham.)<\/p>\n Why did I just spend 1,500-some words discussing the etymology and connotations of a crude bit of American slang? Because right now that seems to be a welcome distraction from thinking about the state of American politics which have gotten downright \u2026\u00a0well, you know.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n * Growing up attending a fundamentalist Christian school and church youth group, we considered this to be rather severe profanity. We did not cuss, but we knew some of\u00a0the words and assigned them all a hierarchy of severity. In ascending order of wickedness: the h-word, the d-word, the s-word, the f-word. At Timothy Christian School, this was quantifiable, as either of those first two would get you a demerit, but either of the latter two would get you four<\/em> demerits. In youth group, the use of the h- or d-word would prompt only a stern recitation of Philippians 4:8, but the use of those more severe words prompted genuine dismay \u2014 evidence\u00a0of rebellion and backsliding and grave concerns for the state of one\u2019s soul that would need to be corrected at the next altar-call opportunity to re-dedicate one\u2019s life to Christ.<\/p>\n While we often piously revisited Philippians 4:8 as an anti-swearing prooftext, no one ever made the connection between that verse and Philippians 3:8, which our King James Bibles cleans up\u00a0as \u201cI have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n ** This is something that I regret not learning sooner, and something I still am trying to learn to handle better. I want to avoid using language that could be interpreted as disparaging or shaming people with mental illnesses and so I have learned not to use the word \u201cinsane\u201d as an insult. The trickier thing \u2014 and the part where I still need practice and help \u2014 has to do with the whole universe of non-medical, generic pejoratives that are also sometimes applied pejoratively against those with mental illnesses. This is tricky because\u00a0it\u2019s so pervasive<\/em>. Huge chunks and regions of our language and idiom for criticizing ideas, ideologies and arguments draws on or alludes to notions of \u201cmadness\u201d (and vice versa<\/em>).<\/p>\n So I\u2019ve come to rely on more cartoonish, goofier words like \u201cgonzo\u201d or \u201cbonkers,\u201d hoping that such terms\u00a0are too far removed from any clinical or medical application to be mistaken for a reference to the realm of mental illness. They also tend to be newer words \u2014 and thus words that don\u2019t carry the baggage of an earlier era\u2019s ignorance. I hope that works \u2014 that it\u00a0allows the effect of my words to match my intent. If it\u2019s not working, please let me know and I\u2019ll try to keep learning.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a word you’re not supposed to say on live TV or in front of the children, but it’s spiking in use these days for the same reason that any word does: because of its precision and necessity. We are seeing something in our politics, exemplified in the juvenile free-for-all of this week’s Republican presidential primary debate, and we need to identify it. This appropriately crude word lets us do that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,240],"class_list":["post-31493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agnotology","tag-trump"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Same](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/52\/2016\/02\/KJ22.jpg\")