Hysteria (pronounced hi-ster-ee-uh (U) or hi-steer-re-ah (non-U))
(1) In casual use, an uncontrollable outburst of emotion or fear, often characterized by irrationality, laughter, weeping, etc.
(2) In psychoanalysis, a psychoneurotic disorder characterized by violent emotional outbreaks, disturbances of sensory and motor functions, and various abnormal effects due to autosuggestion.
(3) In clinical psychiatry, conversion disorder.
(4) In (historic) clinical medicine, a mental disorder characterized by emotional excitability etc without an organic cause (archaic).
1795-1805: From the New Latin hysteria, from hysteric, from Classical Latin hystericus, from the Ancient Greek ὑστερικός (husterikós) (a suffering in the uterus, hysterical), from ὑστέρα (hustéra) (womb). It’s from the same classical root that French gained hystérie and the long-archaic alternative English form is hysterick. Now entirely obsolete as a medical term, hysteria is most often used as (1) a descriptor of someone behaving in an emotionally over-wrought way (with many feminist critics noting the loaded associations whether applied to men or women) or (2) in sociology and psychology (as mass hysteria) to describe a phenomenon that manifests as a collective illusion of fears in a whole or a sub-set of a population. Like many terms that start with a non-silent h but have emphasis on their second syllable, some people precede hysteric with an, others with a. Both practices are acceptable in modern English as long as use is consistent. Hysteria & hystericalness are nouns, hysteric is a noun & adjective, hysterical is an adjective and hysterically is an adverb; the noun plural is hysterias, hysteriae or hysteriæ (the latter two rare even in the medical literature). According to the trackers, the most common noun plural is hysterics.
Once exclusively female
For reasons both of linguistic and physiological determinism, until the nineteenth century it wasn’t possible for men to receive a diagnosis of hysteria, regardless of how hysterically they might have behaved. Western medicine had long accepted the Ancient Greek belief hysteria was caused by a disturbance in the uterus and thus was exclusively a condition of women; an alternative description was uterine melancholy. While drawn from the Greek hystera (uterus), the word is not ancient, the phrase in Greek medicine being hysterical suffocation. The Greeks thought the uterus moved through the body, eventually strangling her and inducing disease, hence the tradition of centuries the disorder could exist only in women. The mysterious tarassis was suggested as a name for male hysteria but is noted by only a few sources and then as either obscure or archaic although the Tarassis (male hysteria) mini-skirt is available from RedBubble as part number 31587934.
Jean Martin Charcot, Une leçon clinique à la Salpêtrière (A Clinical Lesson at the Salpêtrière, 1887), oil on canvas by André Brouillet (1857–1914), Paris Descartes University, Paris.
Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893) was a French neurologist and professor of anatomical pathology with a great interest in hysteria, most notably that exhibited by his patient Louise Augustine Gleizes (1861-1904), the woman who is the focus of this painting. Professor Charcot was one of the seminal influences on early-modern neurology, psychology & psychiatry but his protocols for treating patients like Mademoiselle Gleizes would appal modern ethics committess. First exhibited at the Salon of 1887 in the Louvre's Salon Carré, Brouillet's painting however is one of the most famous in the history of neurology so there's that.
Late in the nineteenth century, Sigmund Freud's (1856-1939) early work with diagnosed hysterics was important in his development of psychoanalytic therapy, one patient ever calling the treatment a "talking cure" and within the profession it’s still known as “talk therapy”. It wasn’t until 1980 the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) withdrew the word. In the first edition of the DSM (DSM–I (1952)) the condition was named “conversion reaction” while, in DSM–II (1968), it was grouped with dissociation disorder under the new diagnostic category of “hysterical neurosis” although, later, conversion disorder was conceptualised as a disorder of the brain associated with disordered emotions. The transition to a system that classified psychiatric disorders by clinical phenomenology rather than aetiology resulted in the elimination of “hysterical neurosis” from DSM–III (1980), supplanted by “dissociation disorders” and “conversion disorders” with the latter separated from the former and listed as a “somatoform disorder”. Thus, since 1980, somatoform disorders and the dissociative disorders have been separate categories in the DSM (the changes generally reflected in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Classification of Diseases (ICD)), the nomenclature progressing thus:
1952 DSM–I: Conversion reaction
1968 DSM–II: Hysterical neurosis (conversion type)
1980 DSM–III: Conversion disorder
1992 ICD–10: Dissociative (conversion) disorder
1994 DSM–IV: Conversion disorder
2013 DSM-5: No substantive changes, confirming symptoms once labeled under the broad umbrella of hysteria would fit under what is now referred to as somatic symptom disorder.
Although the US manufacturers in the twenty-first century revived a number of the more famous hues available during the first muscle car era (1964-1974), the “Hysteria Purple” (Code GXL; touch-up paint part-number WA-134H) Chevrolet in 2025 added to the Corvette’s exterior color chart genuinely was new. Unlike four of the metallic choices which for 2026 attracted an additional charge (between US$500-995), Hysteria Purple was a NAC (no additional cost) option and could be ordered in conjunction with several of the available interior colors. The “recommended” color combinations reflect what the designers think is good taste but, the customer always being right”, the factory allows buyers to tick the CCO (Color Combination Override (Code D30)) option box to mix ‘n’ match as they wish; the CCO lists at US$695.
Response to Hysteria Purple was favorable but there’s been extensive coverage of the intriguing phenomenon of the color appearing to be “purple” when seen indoors, in the shade or at night yet when in natural light seeming more of a “blueberry blue”. Chemically, the mix is said to be of blue and purple and Chevrolet would have been aware of the color-shift as ambient light changes so clearly it was deliberate rather than something like the “unintended consequences” suffered in 1970 by Imperials when, after exposure to direct sunlight, their hastily dyed vinyl roofs deteriorated rapidly from a fetching mix of blue & purple swirls to a less pleasing beige & brown combo. On social media platforms and the well-populated Corvette forums, the consensus seemed to be the “bluish-purple” deserved to be dubbed with the portmanteau word “blurple”.
The first run of 300 C1 (1953-1962) Corvettes were all were finished in “Polo White” (part of a patriotic “red, white & blue” theme which included “Sportsman Red” interiors and engines painted “Blue Flame” Blue) but since then the color palettes have been many and varied. Now, the factory even accommodates those for whom the color of their wheel lugs is an important aesthetic. The standard wheel on 2026 Corvettes is a forged aluminum piece finished in “Stirling Silver” (a reference to the paint’s color rather than metal) but blue, black and silver forged aluminum units are available for as much as an additional US$1,995 and for a Ferrariesque US$13,995 a buyer can specify “Visible carbon fiber” ones. So, different color wheels meant a gap in the market for the lug nuts and for those not content with the standard metal fittings, Chevrolet offers them (as a dealer-fitted option) in chrome (US$275) or black (US$295), thus a unit-cost respectively of US$14 & US$15. That doesn’t seem unreasonable for a high-quality piece of machining but, being dealer-fitted, it’s not clear if the buyer gets to keep the standard lugs fitted at the factory or they’re retained by the dealer.
No comments:
Post a Comment