Demon

Demon (pronounced dee-muhn (U) or dee-mon (non-U))

(1) An evil supernatural spirit; devil or fiend; an evil spirit resident in or working for Hell; a devil; a false god or idol; a Satanic divinity.

(2) An evil passion or influence.

(3) A most wicked, cruel or malevolent person; also (in weakened sense) a mischievous person, especially a child.

(4) A person who is extremely skillful in, energetic at, or devoted to a given activity, especially a sport.

(5) Of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or noting a demon.

(6) In computing, a part of a computer program, such as a help facility, that can run in the background behind the current task or application, and which will only begin to work when certain conditions are met or when it is specifically invoked; often styled daemon.

(7) A person's fears or anxieties (always in the plural and usually in the form “haunted by their demons” or “facing their demons”).

(8) In Greek mythology, a tutelary deity or spirit intermediate between the major Olympian gods and mankind, especially a deified hero or the entity which supposedly guided Socrates, telling him what not to do.

(9) In the thought experiments of both physics and philosophy, a hypothetical entity with special abilities postulated for the purposes required.

(10) A person's inner spirit or genius; a guiding or creative impulse (archaic).

(11) In card games, a type of patience or solitaire played in the UK & US.

(12) Any of various hesperiid butterflies of the genera Notocrypta and Udaspes.

Circa 1200-1250: From the Middle English demon (an evil spirit, malignant supernatural being, an incubus, a devil), from the Medieval Latin dēmōn, daemōn & daemoniumm (lar, familiar spirit, guardian spirit), from the Ancient Greek daimónion (thing of divine nature (though when used by Jewish and Christian writers: “evil spirit”)), neuter of daimónios, from δαίμων (daímōn) (deity, divine power; lesser god; guiding spirit, tutelary deity) and in both the Greek and Latin, the meanings sometime extended to souls of the dead and “one's genius, lot, or fortune”.  Ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European dai-mon (divider, provider (of fortunes or destinies)) from the root da (to divide).  The alternative spellings daemon & daimon was used in specialized senses and remain a favourite of the modern gaming industry; daimon was a transliteration of the Greek daimōn which was deployed to avoid the post-classical associations of demon (often in the adjectival form daimonic).  The demoness (female demon) dates from the 1630s.  Demon is a noun; the noun plural is demons.

Crooked Hillary Clinton depicted as a demon (believed to be digitally-altered image).

The malignant sense existed in English from the start because the Greek word was used (with daimonion) in Christian Greek translations and the Vulgate (the principal Latin version of the Bible, prepared mainly by the theologian Saint Jerome (circa 344-Circa 420) in the late fourth century, and (as revised in 1592) adopted as the official text for the Roman Catholic Church) for "god of the heathen, heathen idol" and also for "unclean spirit".  This was also part of the Jewish tradition where authors had used the Greek word in this sense, using it to render shedim (lords, idols) in the Septuagint and in Matthew 8:31 there appears daimones, translated as deofol in the Old English & feend or deuil in the Middle English.  A more evocative word in the Old English word was hellcniht (literally "hell-knight").  The inherited sense from the Ancient Greek (supernatural agent or intelligence lower than a god; a ministering spirit) appeared in English from the 1560s, written variously as daemon or daimon.  The meaning "destructive or hideous person" is from the 1610s and as "an evil agency personified" (ie the demon drink), from 1712.  In another sense in late fourteenth century English, the “Demon of Socrates” was a daimonion (a divine principle or inward oracle) although his accusers (and later the Church Fathers) represented this otherwise.  The Demon Star (1895) is Algol (variable star (Beta Persei)) in the constellation Perseus, documented in the late fourteenth century, which translates literally as "the Demon" from the Arabic al-ghul (the demon), from which is derived the modern ghoul.  It corresponds, in modern representations of the constellation, to the gorgon's head Perseus holds, but probably it was so called because it visibly varies in brightness every three days, which sets it apart from other bright stars.  In one of the most famous fragments of English verse, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s (1772-1834) Kubla Khan (1798), there are the lines:

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

The noun demonarchy (rule or dominion of demons) first appeared in the 1640s while the noun demonology (the study of demons or beliefs about demons) had appeared in both secular and church documents as early as the 1590s, the related terms of the discipline being demonologer & demonological.  The adjective demonic (also daemonic) (devilish, of the nature of or pertaining to a demon), from the Latin daemonicus dates from the 1660s while demonical (from the Old English glossed daemonicus with deofelseoc (devil-sick) was from later in the century.  The adjective demoniac (possessed by a demon, insane) was from circa 1400 but several decades earlier there had been the noun demoniak, (one who is possessed, a lunatic), from the Late Latin daemoniacus, from the Greek daimoniakos (possessed by a demon), from diamond.  From the 1640s the adjective was used in the sense of "of or pertaining to demons or spirits" while by 1820 this had extended to a rather softened "devilish"; the related forms were demoniacal & demoniacally.

Lindsay Lohan in demonic pose to celebrate her twenty-third birthday, 2009.

The verb demonize (also demonise) (to make into a demon (literally or figuratively)) dates from 1778, either as a construct built from the noun or from the Medieval Latin daemonizare, all influenced by the Greek daimonizesthai (to be under the power of a tutelary deity) and the sense in the New Testament of "to be possessed by a demon”, the related forms demonized, demonizing & demonization all in use by the late eighteenth century.  The noun Pandæmonium (pandemonium the modern form) was in 1667 coined by John Milton (1608-1674) in Paradise Lost as the name of the palace built in the middle of Hell (the high capital of Satan and all his peers and the abode of all the demons), the construct being the Greek pan- (all) + the Late Latin daemonium (evil spirit) from the Greek daimonion (inferior divine power) from daimōn (in the sense of lesser god).

The Dodge Demons

The 1969 Dodge Swinger 340 (left), a platform familiar in Australia where it was produced (1969-1971) in a variety of configurations including a two-door hardtop (a 1971 VG Regal 770 (centre)) and four-door sedans (a 1971 long-wheelbase VIP (right)).

The Dodge Dart of the mid 1960s was a compact (in US terms) economy car which fulfilled its role well, lasting indeed until the late 1970s when it turned out to be in many ways superior to its ill-fated replacements.  However, an unusual conjunction of economic, legislative and demographic factors in the late 1960s made the Dart an ideal platform for a cheap muscle car which could easily and quickly be built from the corporate parts bin.  Its humble origins were never entirely disguised and it always lurked behind the sturm und drang of the bigger, more illustrious models like the Charger, Challenger and Daytona but as a bargain-priced muscle car, it deserved success.  Dodge had tentatively dipped the Dart’s toe into the muscle car waters in 1967 when it introduced the Dart GTS which, fitted with a 273 cubic inch (4.4 litre) V8 performed admirably given its modest specification but it the next year it became available with a new 340 cubic inch (5.5 litre) V8 which, thought under-rated at 275 (gross) horsepower, was one of the best units of the era.  Able in most cases to match the performance offered by much of the bigger-engined competition, reviews were positive and in 1969 a separate line called the Swinger 340 was released, a package which convinced Dodge to abandon its brief flirtation with overkill, not renewing the availability of the 383 & 440 cubic inch (6.3 & 7.2 litre) V8 engines in the platform.  The big-block engines were really suitable only for a drag strip, the lighter 340 a better idea.

1971 Dodge Demon 340.

Demon decal with demonic pitchfork.

In 1971, the Dart received an additional body style, borrowed from their corporate companion Plymouth which had added the Duster coupé as a stylish addition to the Valiant line, their equivalent of the compact Dart.  However, Dodge’s marketing people in the early 1970s either smoked too much weed or didn’t get out enough because shortly after flirting with the idea of adding statutory grape to their paint colour charts, they decided to call their new high-performance compact the Demon.  That upset the Christian lobby, influential even then but remarkably, the marketing department was going to use the name Beaver until more worldly types told them about its use in slang.  The churches weren’t best pleased about Demon but, given the scriptural basis, they relented despite the cartoon devil on a decal stuck to the fenders.  The churches, not impressed with a marketing strategy which seemed to support the Antichrist weren’t convinced by the explanation that it was all about a play on words (Come in for a Demon-stration) and continued to protest.  Dodge persisted and although denied statutory grape, buyers could choose lurid colors like Go-Green and Citron Yella while for those intent on building the quickest version possible, there was the Demon Sizzler package which bundled a number of dress-up and high performance options.  It was a good combination at a low price but it was out-sold by the mechanically identical Plymouth Duster 340s possibly because the Christian lobby had actually organized the preaching of sermons condemning Dodge as doing the Devil’s work so in 1973 the Demon nomenclature (and the offending cartoon) was dropped, the thing re-branded to the bland Dart Sport, a line which ran for three years (although the once virile 340 would be detuned and then replaced with a much milder 360 cubic inch (5.9 litre) unit.  The Christian lobby thus claimed the demon’s scalp although they never managed to veto Dodge’s use of Swinger and today, the 1971 & 1972 Demon 340s are sought-after.  Production numbers were never high (10,098 & 8,700 respectively) and give its cheap, disposable nature, and the buyers attracted to such things over the decades, attrition rates were high and survivors are few although, as just about everywhere in the muscle car ecosystem, there’s a minor industry in creating clones.

Demon redux: 2018 Dodge Challenger Demon.  The yellow plastic guard on the leading edge of the front splitter was attached at the factory to deter damage during transport to dealerships.  The instruction was to remove them prior to sale but they picked up a cult following and many buyers insisted they be retained.

Chrysler reprised the Dodge Demon name in 2018 (and Swinger in 2022) apparently with little theological opposition.  The engine used in the new Demon was an evolution of the 376 cubic inch (6.2 litre) Hemi V8 which, in 2017’s Challenger Hellcat, was rated at 707 horsepower.  With production limited to 3300 units, the 2018 Demon used a supercharged Hemi which produced 808 hp but an optional package boosted that to 840.  So equipped, the Demon would cover a standing quarter-mile (400m) in 9.65 seconds at 140 mph (225 km/h) and cost was a remarkably modest US$86,091 including the optional package which, while not entirely suitable for driving on public roads, was completely street-legal.  It included a number of features which hinted at its real purpose, including the passenger and rear seats being no-cost options and, most intriguingly, a high-output mode which both increased power and disabled the cabin air-conditioning, routing its cooling flow instead to the induction system, a device that lowered the intake temperature by 18-odd degrees, thereby gaining a few more horsepower.  Although tuned for quarter-mile sprints and thus limiting top-speed to about 170 mph (270 km/h), it could be geared for top end performance and would easily exceed 200 mph (320 km/h).

Incubus & Succubus

Incubus (pronounced in-kyuh-buhs or ing-kyuh-buhs)

(1) In medieval folklore, a mythical demon or evil spirit said to be a figure appearing in nightmares and (when in explicit male form) known to descend upon sleeping women, engaging in sexual intercourse.

(2) Used loosely, sleep paralysis; night terrors, a nightmare.

(3) Some thought weighing upon one, oppressing one like a nightmare, especially if an obsession which prevents or interrupts sleep.

(4) By extension, a yoke, any oppressive thing or person; a burden.

(5) In entomology, one of various parasitic insects, especially the sub-family Aphidiinae.

1175–1225: From the Middle English incubus, from the Medieval Latin incubus (a nightmare induced by such a demon), a noun derivative of the Latin incubāre (to lie upon; to incubate), from the Latin incubō (nightmare, one who lies down on the sleeper; to lie upon, to hatch), the construct being in- (used in the sense of “on”) +‎ cubō (to lie down).  From the Latin the word was picked up also by Dutch (incubus), French (incube), German (Incubus), Italian (incubo), Portuguese (íncubo), Romanian (incub), Russian (инку́б (inkúb)) and Spanish (íncubo).  Incubus is a noun; the noun plural is incubuses or incubi.

Succubus (pronounced suhk-yuh-buhs)

(1) In medieval folklore, a mythical demon in female form, said to have sexual intercourse with men in their sleep.

(2) Any demon or evil spirit (historically, almost always in female form).

(3) A woman of loose virtue; a strumpet; a whore, a prostitute (archaic).

1350–1400: From the Middle English succubus, from the Medieval Latin succubus, a variant of the Latin succuba (a harlot), from the Latin succubāre (to lie beneath), the construct being sub- (used in the sense of “under”) + cubāre (to lie).  The alternative form was succuba.  Succubus was coined to describe a female form of a fiend on the model of incubus.  The verb succubate (have carnal knowledge of a man (as a succuba) came from the Latin past participle where succuba (a harlot) was use of a woman of human flesh and blood with no suggestion of the supernatural.  The transferred sense of succuba in the Classical Latin was “a supplanter; a rival”.  Succubus & succuba are nouns, succubine is an adjective and succubate is a verb; the noun plural is succubi. 

Lindsay Lohan with bottle of Mountain Dew water leaving an Incubus concert, Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, 13 July, 2009.  Incubus is a four or five piece rock band described as “part metal, part funk, part jazz and part hip-hop”.

The incubus was a male demon said to engage in sexual activity with sleeping women, depicted often in situations in which the victim was unable to resist and the subtext was less one of the demon’s desire than a wish to drain energy or life force.  Historically, the visitation of incubi was blamed for causing nightmares and in pre-modern medicine they were attributed as the source of sleep paralysis.  The succubus was a female demon, aid to seduce men, visiting in their dreams and engaging in sexual activity.  In folklore, the notion of unwillingness among the “victims” was not always present and often the succubus depicted as a temptress who exploits human desires, one sub-text being men were really not to blame for falling for her “irresistible” charms.  Despite that, priests would use the succubus to illustrate the dangers of masturbation, linking the demon’s nocturnal visits with the practice.  This association with themes of temptation, sin and the dangers of uncontrolled lust was one of the reasons “succubus” was by the mid-sixteenth century used to mean “a strumpet; a woman of loose virtue, a prostitute”, echoing the earlier Latin succuba (a harlot); the English language has proved endlessly productive in coining terms with which to denigrate women.  The essential distinction was that succubi were depicted as alluring and seductive, whereas incubi were portrayed as invasive and terrifying, themes familiar for thousands of years.  It’s notable that in many folk narratives, it was monks who were said to be especially vulnerable to the ways of the succubi, their sexual skills such that they would draw from the clerics so much energy the unfortunate men could barely sustain themselves, some succumbing to exhaustion and even death.  In Antiquity, although the specific terms incubus (a male demon which rapes sleeping women) and succubus (a female demon which seduces men) were not used, similar ideas do appear in Greek and Roman mythology and in the Christian tradition of the incubi & succubi the ancient beliefs in spirits, demons and seduction were blended and infused with Biblical influence.

The Greek demons

There was Empusa (Ερπουσα), one of the creatures in Hecate's entourage who belonged to the Underworld and filled the night with terrors.  Empusa could assume various shapes and appeared particularly to women and children; feeding on human flesh, she would often assume the form of a young girl to attract her victims.  Lamia (leɪmiə) was a daughter of Poseidon and mother of the Libyan Sibyl.  She was a most terrible monster who was said to steal children and was a terror to nurses.  In one account (in mythology there are many strains), Lamia was the daughter of Belus and Libya and enjoyed an affair with Zeus but on every occasion she gave birth to a child, Hera would arrange for it to die.  All this affected Lamia and she became depressed, in her despair secluding herself in a cave where she became a monster with an obsessive jealousy of mothers more fortunate than herself; she would seize and devour their children.  To punish her more, Hera denied her the ability to sleep so she appealed to Zeus who gave her the power to take out her eyes, replacing them whenever she wished.  The tale of Lamia influenced writers and some other female spirits which attached themselves to children in order to suck their blood were known as Lamiae.

Sirens and the Night (1865), oil on canvas by William Edward Frost (1810-1877).

Hecate (hɛkəti) was another demon where the details vary in different tales.  The poet Hesiod (active 740-650 BC) portrayed her as the offspring of Asteria & Perses and a and a direct descendant of the generation of Titans.  She had some virtues in that when she extended hr goodwill to mortals, variously she could grant material prosperity, eloquence in political assemblies and victory in battle & sporting events.  She had the power to fill the nets of fishermen, make the fields of farmer fecund and fatten their cattle but her reputation suffered because, as a goddess of witchcraft, ghosts, and magic (big things at the time), her retinue included ghostly women or phantoms who preyed upon men in the manner of a succubus.  The Sirens (Σειρῆνες) were deadly creatures who used their lyrical and earthly charms to lure sailors to their death.  Attracted by their enchanting music and voices, the seduced seafarers would sail their ships too close to the rocky coast of the nymph's island and there be shipwrecked.  Not untypically for the myths of antiquity, the sirens are said to have had many homes.  The Romans said they lived on some small islands called Sirenum scopuli while later authors place them variously on the islands of Anthemoessa, on Cape Pelorum, on the islands of the Sirenuse, near Paestum, or in Capreae.  All were places with rocky coasts and tall cliffs.  It was Odysseus who most famously escaped the sirens.  Longing to hear their songs but having no wish to be shipwrecked, he had his sailors fill their ears with beeswax, rendering them deaf.  Odysseus then ordered them to tie him to the mast.  Sailing past, when he heard their lovely voices, he ordered his men to release him but they tightened the knots, not releasing him till the danger had passed.  Some writers claimed the Sirens were fated to die if a man heard their singing and escaped them and that as Odysseus sailed away they flung themselves into the water and drowned.  The idea of the sirens persists in idiomatic use:  The "siren sound" is used to refers to words or something which exerts a particular compelling attraction but a "siren call" can be used of something not directly audible such as the thoughts evoked by a painting or even a concept, populism, fascism & communism all described thus at times.

The Roman demons

The strīx (στριγός) was a bird of ill omen, the product of metamorphosis, infamous for feeding on human flesh and blood.  That behavior saw the name adopted for witches but again the tales vary.  Some claimed the strīx did no harm to mortals while other damn them as vampiric, owl-like creatures,  man-eaters who were the terror of any community upon which they would prey, a notion much pursued by later Medieval writers, always happy to recount takes of bloodthirsty women, the strīx blamed for much child-eating, sometimes with an undertone of seduction or spiritual corruption.  The witches were unconnected with the word Styx.  Styx (Στύξ) was a river of the Underworld and as told by Hesiod, Styx was the oldest of the children of Oceanus & Tethys but the Roman writer Hyginus (Gaius Julius Hyginus (circa 64 BC–17 AD) aid she was one of the children of Nyx & Erebus.  Muddying the waters further, she featured amongst Persephone's companions in the in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, but there was also a tradition according to which she was Persephone's mother.  Styx was the name of a spring in Arcadia which emerged from a rock above ground, then disappeared underground again.  Its water was poisonous for humans and cattle and could break iron, metal and pottery, though a horse's hoof was unharmed and supposedly, it was waters from this spring which poisoned Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great, 356-323 BC).  The water of the Styx was in some stories said to possess magical powers and it was into its flow that Thetis dipped Achilles (holding by the heel) in order to confer invulnerability.  The satyrs (σάτυρος) were demons of nature which appeared in Dionysus' train, represented often with the lower part of the body resembling that of a horse and the upper part that of a man (sometimes the animal half was that of a goat).  They had a long, thick tail (like that of a horse) and a perpetually erect penis of truly heroic dimensions.  In many stories, they were depicted as enjoying dancing & drinking with Dionysus and pursuing the Maenads & Nymphs.  Over time, the bestial almost vanished as their lower limbs became human with feet rather than hooves with only the full tails remained as a reminder of the old form.  Although infamous for their lascivious behavior, they were not malevolent in the same way as demons although they pursued women and nymphs with as great an enthusiasm as any incubus.

Mad

Mad (pronounced mad)

(1) Mentally disturbed; deranged; insane; demented.

(2) Enraged; greatly provoked or irritated; angry.

(3) As madman or (metaphorically) mad dog, a person abnormally furious; ferocious (and can be applied literally to animals (mad bull etc), especially dogs afflicted with rabies (a rabid dog).

(4) Extremely foolish or unwise; imprudent; irrational.

(5) Wildly excited or confused; frantic (often as “in mad haste”).

(6) Overcome by desire, eagerness, enthusiasm etc; excessively or uncontrollably fond of (usually) someone; infatuated; (often as “madly in love”).

(7) Wildly lively and merry; enjoyably hilarious.

(8) Of extremes in climatic conditions (of wind, storms, etc), furious in violence.

(9) An angry or ill-tempered period, mood, or spell.

(10) As MAD, the acronym for mutually assured destruction: a theory of nuclear warfare deterrence whereby each side in a conflict has the capacity to destroy the other in retaliation for a nuclear attack.

(11) The acronym for the Militärischer Abschirmdienst, a counterintelligence agency of the German military (essentially the successor to the old Abwehr (1920-1944)).

(12) The acronym, in admiralty administration, for the Maritime anomaly detection in Global Maritime Situational Awareness, for avoiding maritime collisions

(13) The acronym, in astronomy, for the Magnetic anomaly detector which detects variations in Earth's magnetic field.

(14) The acronym, in high-energy physics, for the Methodical Accelerator Design, a CERN scripting language used in particle acceleration.

Pre 900: From the Middle English mad (adjective) & madden (an intransitive verb, derived from the adjective), from the Old English gemǣd, past participle of gemǣdan (to make mad), akin to gemād (troubled in mind; demented, insane, foolish).  It was cognate with the Old Saxon gemēd, the Old Norse meitha (to hurt, damage) and the Old High German gimeit (foolish, silly, crazy).  In the Old English, gemǣded was the past participle of gemǣdan (to render insane).  As an adjective, the comparative is madder and the superlative maddest but the strangest adjectival form is probably the very English maddish, suggesting some state between displeased and actually mad.  The ultimate root of the Old English forms was the Germanic adjective gamaidaz (changed for the worse, abnormal), the element “maid” from the primitive Indo-European moi-, a variant of the root mei- & moi- (to change, exchange, go, move), extended with a dental suffix (-d in Germanic; -t elsewhere).  The same suffixed variant moit- appears in the Latin mūtāre (to change, exchange, give and receive in exchange), familiar in COVID-19-era English as mutate.  The Sicilian Greek (a fork by virtue of geography always most likely to be influenced by Latin) has the noun moîtos (thanks, favor, reward), presumably a borrowing from the Old Latin moitus.  Mad is an adjective, verb & adverb; madder & maddeningness are nouns, adjectives & verbs, maddest, maddish & maddening are adjectives, madly & maddeningly are adverbs and madden & maddens are verbs; the noun use of mad is non-standard.

The synonyms for mad exist in its four senses (1) lunatic, maniacal, psychotic, crazed, crazy, nuts, kooky, nutty, insane, (2) furious, exasperated, livid, raging, wrathful, irate, (3) ill-advised; unsafe, dangerous, perilous & (4) absurd, fantastic, delirious, wondrous.  There is much overlap in the synonyms, insane historically meant “not sane, mentally unstable” but is now popular with the Instagram generation as a general expression of approval and "bonkers", while still meaning “not sane, mentally unstable” also (except in the US) has come to be used in an entirely non-pejorative way to suggest something astonishing in the sense of something or someone verging on the irrational but in some way inspiring; absurd works in a similar way.

Bonkers: 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170.

Because it makes Greta Thunberg (b 2003) mad, the likes of the SRT Demon 170 won’t be seen again but an off-the-shelf machine which can generate 1,025 horsepower makes a fine swansong.  To make Ms Thunberg madder still, it’s noted the induction system is capable of providing more fuel flow per minute than the average US showerhead and in a nice touch the purchaser will receive a commemorative Demon 170 decanter set.  Thousand horsepower cars for the street have traditionally been the preserve of madmen but mad women should be encouraged to give one a try.   

The word appears often in idiomatic use including “mad as a March hare” which alluded to hares becoming especially active in spring their mating season; “mad as a meat axe”, an especially evocative piece of Australian slang which is self-explanatory to anyone who has seen an un-skilled operator use a meataxe on a carcass and “barking mad”, the origin of which is mysterious.  The best story links it with the existence of a medieval lunatic asylum in the grounds of the royal monastery Barking Abbey (located in what is now the London borough of Barking and Dagenham) but there’s no evidence of use before the early twentieth century and most etymologists have concluded there’s a link with the idea “mad dogs” incessantly bark.  The London slang use suggesting someone is “three stops past Barking” is thought to have be an opportunistic adoption referencing the “barking” and in the vein of something like “a picnic short of a sandwich” which suggests some degree of mental incapacity.  There was even “shorthand slang” based on this idea: were one to be called “daggers”, it meant one was “three stops past Barking”, Dagenham being three stations beyond Barking on the London Underground.

The original meaning of mad was “insane, demented, disturbed of mind”, a sense inherited with the word from the Germanic forms.  The progression in meaning seems to have begun circa 1300 when the senses (1) “mad dog” (dog afflicted with rabies (rabid)), (2) “foolish or unwise” and (3), “overcome by desire or eagerness” emerged; the meaning “enraged, angry” not recorded until circa 1400.  This sense of mad quickly became the usual colloquial term in the United States whereas “angry” long persisted as the popular form elsewhere in the English-speaking world although the increasing US cultural influence noted since the mid-twentieth century makes these distinctions probably less noticeable.  The sense “wildly lively, merry” is said to be an innovation of African-American English associated with jazz and dating from the 1940s.  For those learning English, “mad” must seem a strange word given the social difficulties engendered if one accidently mixes up being “mad about you” with “mad at you”.  So students should be given practical examples such as: "I am mad about him" (I would like to enjoy intimacy with him); "I am mad at him" (I am angry with him or I would like to kill him); "He is mad" (he appears mentally unstable).

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

Another thing for them to learn was that wad was one of those words listed as a class-identifier by Professor Alan Ross (1907-1980), Professor of Linguistics at the University of Birmingham who in 1954 coined "U" (upper-class) and "non-U" (non-Upper-Class) to describe the differences social class makes in their use of English.  While his article included differences in pronunciation and writing styles, it was his list of variations in vocabulary which attracted most interest.  One difference he noted was the upper-class call the obviously unstable “mad” whereas the lower classes tend to label them “mental”.  Professor Ross published his illustrative glossary "U" and "non-U", differentiating the speech patterns in English social classes, in a Finnish academic journal and used extracts from Nancy Mitford’s (1904–1973 and the oldest of the Mitford sisters, all but one of whom society's more conventional types were apt to label "mad") 1945 novel The Pursuit of Love to provide examples of the patterns of speech of the upper class.  This pleased Nancy Mitford who interpolated the professor’s work into an article about the English gentry she was writing for Stephen Spender's (1909-1995) literary magazine Encounter (1953-1990).  Although not best-pleased that her discussion of the Ross thesis was the only part of her piece to attract attention, more amusing was the subsequent re-publication in 1956 in her Noblesse Oblige: an Enquiry into the Identifiable Characteristics of the English Aristocracy which, augmented with contributions from John Betjeman (1906–1984) and Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966), meant that for decades she was the acknowledged authority on upper-class speech, manners and ways.  Her class-conscious readers had taken it all more seriously than she had intended.

He must have been mad: New Zealand-born political cartoonist David Low’s (1891-1963) take on the announcement from Berlin that Rudolf Hess (1894–1987; Nazi deputy Führer 1933-1941) had gone mad, Daily Express 15 May 1941.  Clockwise from left: Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Hitler's designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945), Adolf Hitler (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945), Dr Robert Ley (1890–1945; head of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labour Front) 1933-1945), Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945; Reichsführer SS 1929-1945), Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) and Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946; Nazi foreign minister 1938-1945).

On 10 May 1941, Hess, a skilled pilot, wholly on his own initiative, undertook a secret flight to Scotland where his plan was to negotiate an end to the hostilities between the UK and Germany.  This was only days before the German invasion of the Soviet Union (something of which Hess made no mention while being interrogated) and his motivation was to avoid what he (correctly) regarded as the major strategic mistake of confronting a two-front war.  The British government, interested only in the eradication of Nazism declined to negotiate and Hess was locked up, including for some two weeks enjoying the rare honor of being held in the tower of London.  News of Hess’s flight had sent shockwaves through the Nazi high command, then about to embark on the greatest invasion in history.

Rudolf Hess (left) and Adolf Hitler (right), Sturmabteilung (the SA (Storm Troopers, the Nazi Party's original paramilitary formation) parade, Nuremberg 11 September 1938; the car is a Mercedes-Benz 770K (W07, 1930–1938).

After for a while clinging to the hope his erstwhile deputy might have crashed into the ocean, Hitler, upon hearing the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) confirm the curious arrival on Scottish soil, made the sudden decision to issue a statement claiming Hess had gone mad, the consequence of injuries suffered during World War I (1914-1918) and falling under the influence of fortune tellers.  This was done without consulting the propaganda minister and Goebbels was aghast the regime had just admitted its deputy leader was a madman; he feared how the British would exploit the revelation, knowing what he’d do in their place.  However, aware through intelligence sources the invasion of Russia was nigh, the British had no wish to convey to Moscow the impression they were seeking to make peace with the Nazis and the bizarre business soon vanished from the news, coming to be known as a “nine day wonder”; the only one upon whom it appeared to leave a lasting impression was comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953) who to his dying day remained suspicious elements in the UK were associated with the flight of the “motorized Parsifal”.

Hitler on a walk with Helga Goebbels (1932-1945), 1936.  She was Joseph Goebbels' oldest child.

The other immediate effect was the Nazis, in a typical reaction, organized a crackdown on the fortune tellers but in Berlin, the sardonic humor soon surfaced and a joke circulated in which Hess was taken to meet Winston Churchill (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) who asked: “So you’re the madman?” to which he received the reply: “No, I’m only his deputy.”  Hess died by suicide in Spandau prison in 1987 after 46 years in captivity, outliving Göring (committed suicide in 1946 just before he was to be hanged for war crimes), Hitler (committed suicide in 1945 in the Berlin Führerbunker with the Red Army’s tanks only streets away), Ley (committed suicide in 1945 while under indictment as a war criminal), Himmler (committed suicide in 1945 after being arrested by the British), Goebbels (committed suicide in 1945 (with his wife) after they’d murdered their six children (aged between 4-12)) and von Ribbentrop (hanged in 1946 as a war criminal.

Until probably sometime in the nineteenth century, for all but a few specialists, the condition of madness was relatively simple: people were mad or sane and while it was noted one could become the other, once labeled as mad one was by most, probably always thought mad and the punchy succinctness of the word could produce a memorable phrase such as the one used by Lady Caroline Lamb (1785–1828) to describe her lover, Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron 1788–1824): "Mad, bad, and dangerous to know".  The only widely observed nuances were behavioral and that was because madness was an observational diagnosis; there were those who were mad, slightly mad, quite mad and barking mad, hardly clinically exact descriptors but it’s doubtful many misunderstood what was being conveyed.  Modernity’s advances in neurology and pharmacology allowed the creation of psychiatry which began to gain a grudging acknowledged respectability in the medical profession around the turn of the century and it been a growth industry since.  The American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), when first published (DSM-I, 1952) was a slim volume of 130 pages which listed 106 mental disorders but by the time the fifth edition (DSM-5, 2013) was released it had grown to 947 pages although interestingly, the number of specific diagnoses was reduced from 172 in DSM-IV (1987) to 157, something of an achievement given 15 new mental illnesses were added.  It is though bit of a definitional minefield and there are those who suggest that once deconstructed, there are really over 300 identifiable conditions, some of the official 157 categories better thought of as groups or clusters.  However the count is done, nobody is expecting DSM-6 to contain fewer pages, whatever method is used to define the conditions so it seems there must been more to madness than once convenient mad-sane binary.

How much the proliferation of diagnosed madness is mission-creep and how much better understanding is a debate, mostly outside the profession.  Some of it is certainly an attempt to secure market-share for the psychiatrists, some “conditions” once thought normal as part of the spectrum of the human condition now listed as a disorder to be referred for treatment and in some cases this is doubtlessly a good thing although quite how reassuring a diagnosis of “generalized anxiety disorder” (GAD) is for a patient may be questionable.  GAD may also be overkill, the psychoanalyst having long supplanted the priest for those who can afford the hourly-rate, market share seems well secured.

Some of Louis Wain's drawings of cats, all reputed to date from his time of incarceration in a mental hospital during the 1930s.

The English artist Louis Wain (1860–1939) was a noted painter of cats, sometimes naturalistic, sometimes stylized and often anthropomorphic.  In his sixties he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and confined to a series of mental institutions, settling eventually in Napsbury Hospital, north of London.  By the standards of the time it was a convivial place with a park and a colony of cats and while his condition worsened, the frequency of his psychotic episodes decreased but drawings of cats he continued to produce became increasingly abstract, intricate and bizarre.  After 1930, he would never again leave Napsbury and there, in 1939, he died aged 78.  For a long time his paintings of cats have been used to illustrate an artist's descent into madness, a theme popular in those circles in which the notion of the "disturbed genius" is a cult.  However, the thesis has been questioned, notably on the technical ground of chronology; being undated, it can't be guaranteed the sequence of drawings as they're usually assembled are an accurate lineal progression of his work and doubt has been case even on the diagnosis of schizophrenia, some speculating the then not well understood medication used in the era to treat the condition may have contributed to his symptoms.

Bonk

Bonk (pronounced bongk)

(1) A bump on the head (usually not severe).

(2) To hit, strike, collide etc; any minor collision or blow.

(3) In slang, a brief intimacy between two people, usually with a suggestion of infidelity; often modified with the adjective quick and only ever used where the act is consensual (less common in North America).

(4) In sports medicine, a condition of sudden, severe fatigue in an endurance sports event, typically induced by glycogen depletion (also in the phrase “hit the wall”).

(5) In snowboarding, to hit something with the front of the board, especially in midair.

(6) In zoology, an animal call resembling "bonk" (such as the call of the pobblebonk (any of various Australian frogs of the genus Limnodynastes)).

1931: A creation of Modern English, the origin remains uncertain but most suspect it was likely imitative of sounds of impact (like bong, bump, bounce or bang) and thus onomatopoetic.  As a slang term for an affaire de coeur, use was first noted in 1975 and has always, depending on context, carried an implication of something illicit or quickly done; purely recreational though always consensual.  The use in sports medicine describing the condition of glycogen depletion references a metaphorical impact as in “hitting the wall”, the first known use in 1952 in endurance sports medicine.  Bonkee, as a descriptor for a "woman of loose virtue", appears to have been a 2014 creation which never caught on which is a shame because there are all sorts of cases where the companion terms "bonker" & "bonkee" might have been handy .  The form "bonkers", referring to the deranged, dated from circa 1957 and was apparently unrelated to the earlier naval slang for “drunk” but alluded rather to what could be the the consequence of a “bonk on the head”.  The third-person singular simple present is bonks, the present participle, bonking and the simple past and past participle, bonked.  Bonk & bonking are nouns & verbs, bonker is a noun, bonky is an adjective, bonked is a verb and bonkers is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is bonks.

Bonkers: "Last Call" 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 in "plum crazy" (one of the retro colors which reprised those used by Chrysler in the "psychedelic era" of the late 1960s).  3300 were produced, many of which are now being advertised for sale at well above the RRP (recommended retail price).

The Demon 170 was released as part of Dodge’s “Last Call” programme which marked the end of the corporation's run of high-performance V8s, a tradition dating from the early 1950s.  Offered in a bewildering array of configurations in a process which was something like Nellie Melba's (1861-1931) "farewell" tours, the SRT Demon 170 was the most bonkers of a generally bonkers lot.  Rated at 1,025 hp (764 kW), the factory claimed it could accelerate from 0-60 mph (100 km/h) in 1.66 seconds with an elapsed time in the standing ¼ mile (400 metres for those who insist) of 8.91 seconds (terminal speed 151 mph (243 km/h)), setting the mark as the worlds quickest ever standard production car, a reasonable achievement for something weighing 4275 lbs (1939 kg).  By world standards it was also very cheap and on the basis of cost-breakdown vs performance, there was nothing like it on the planet.  In British (and other English-speaking regions although rare in the US) use, "bonkers" can and often is used in an entirely non-pejorative way to suggest something or someone verging on the irrational but in some way astonishing, admirable or inspiring.  Road cars with 600+ horsepower V8 & V12 engines are of course bonkers but we'll miss them when they're gone and it would seem the end is nigh.  Greta Thunberg (b 2003) has expressed no regret at the extinction of this species.  

Bonking Boris

Hand-turned fish bonkers on sale in Jaffray, a village in the south-western Canadian province of British Columbia (left) and the front page of The Sun (7 September 2018; right), a tabloid which rarely lets an alliterative opportunity pass by.  

The noun bonker is (1) a short, blunt hardwood club used by fishers efficiently to dispatch (ie bonking them dead) just-caught fish and (2) according to the Murdoch tabloid The Sun, the adulterous Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022).  A bonk by Boris or the club and a not wholly dissimilar outcome ensues; a one-time employer called bonking Boris "ineffably duplicitous" and the estranged (now former) Mrs Johnson presumably agreed.  At the time, the former prime minister had "a bit of previous" in extra-marital bonking and when this one was announced, it was with an alliterative flourish not seen since the headline “BORIS BACKS BREXIT”.  His resignation from Theresa May's (Lady May, b 1956; UK prime-minister 2016-2019) government was unrelated to bonking (as far as is known) and came, in July 2018, three days after a cabinet meeting at Chequers (the prime-minister's country house), where agreement was reached on Mrs May’s Brexit strategy, a document compromised by the need to make a nonsensical impossibility look like good policy.  That can be done but it requires rare skill to be in Downing Street and it's been some time since that could be said. 

Freed by his resignation from the burdens of the Foreign Office, bonking Boris was clearly unconcerned at rumors his opponents in the party were assembling a dossier of some four-thousand words detailing his cheating ways, fondness for cocaine and failings of character and turned his attention to a campaign for the Tory leadership.  As wonderfully unpredictable as the politics of the time were fluid, nobody was quite sure whether he’d go into the inevitable election or second referendum as "leave" or "remain"; it would depend on this and that.  In the end, he remained a leaver and things worked out well, his election victory meaning that for one, brief, shining moment, the three world leaders with the best hair all had nuclear weapons at the same time.

Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021; left), Boris Johnson (centre) and Kim Jong-un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (North Korea) since 2011; right).

Some hairstyles are more amenable than others to a quick post-bonk rectification.  Kim Jong-un's cut is probably quite good and would bounce back from a bonk with little more than a run-through with the fingers.  Donald Trump however would likely need both tools and product for a post-bonk fix.  Mr Trump usually appears well-fixed unless disturbed by breezes any higher than 2 on the Beaufort scale and even a perfunctory bonk is probably equal to at least 4 on the scale so it would have been interesting to see if Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Gregory, b 1979) lived up to her (stage) name although Mr Trump has denied that bonk ever happened.  Mr Johnson's hair so often looks post-bonk that either his conquests are more frequent even than has been rumored or he asks for a JBF with every cut.  One UK publication suggested exactly that, hinting his instruction was "not one hair in place".  That has the advantage for Mr Johnson in that it's a style essentially the same pre-bonk, mid-bonk and post-bonk and thus pricelessly ambiguous in that merely by looking at him, one couldn't tell if he was going to or coming from a bonk although, one assumes, whichever it was, a bonk would never be far from his mind.  Whatever the criticisms of Mr Johnson's premiership (and there were a few), it's to his eternal credit that in his resignation honours list Ms Kelly Jo Dodge (for 27 years the parliamentary hairdresser) was created a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for "parliamentary service".  In those decades, she can have faced few challenges more onerous than Mr Johnson’s hair yet never once failed to make it an extraordinary example in the (actually technically difficult) “not one hair in place” style.  Few honours have been so well deserved.

A bandaged Lindsay Lohan waking dazed and confused after a bonk on the head in Falling for Christmas (2022; left) and on the move in Irish Wish (2024).   

In May 2021, Netflix & Lindsay Lohan executed what became a three movie deal, the first (Falling for Christmas) released in the northern winter of 2022, just in time for the season.  She played the protagonist, a pampered heiress who loses her memory after suffering a bonk on the head, waking up to a new life.  The second Netflix release opens in February 2024 and in Irish Wish, the plotline involves her spontaneously wishing for something, subsequently waking up to find the wish granted.  So it’s a variation on the theme of the first (though without the bonk on the head), the twist being in the theme of “be careful what you wish for”.

Bonking Barnaby and the bonk ban

Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; prime-minister of Australia 2015-2018), a student of etymology, was as fond as those at The Sun of alliteration and when writing his memoir (A Bigger Picture (2020)) he included a short chapter entitled "Barnaby and the bonk ban".  As well as the events which lent the text it's title, the chapter was memorable for his inclusion of perhaps the most vivid thumbnail sketch of Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022) yet penned:

"Barnaby is a complex, intense, furious personality.  Red-faced, in full flight he gives the impression he's about to explode.  He's highly intelligent, often good-humoured but also has a dark and almost menacing side - not unlike Abbott (Tony Abbott (b 1957; prime-minister of Australia 2013-2015)) - that seems to indicate he wrestles with inner troubles and torments."

Mr Turnbull and Mr Joyce in parliament, House of Representatives, Canberra, ACT.

The substantive matter was the revelation in mid-2017 the press had become aware Mr Joyce (a married man with four daughters) was (1) conducting an affair with a member of his staff and (2) that the young lady was with child.  Mr Turnbull recorded that when asked, Mr Joyce denied both "rumors", which does sound like a lie but in the narrow sense may have verged on "the not wholly implausible" on the basis that, as he pointed out in a later television interview, the question of paternity was at the time “...a bit of a grey area”.  Mr Joyce and his mistress later married and now have two children so all's well that end's well (at least for them) and Mr Turnbull didn't so much shut the gate after the horse had bolted as install inter-connecting doors in the stables.  His amendments to the Australian Ministerial Code of Conduct (an accommodating document very much in the spirit of Lord Castlereagh's (1769–1822; UK foreign secretary 1812-1822) critique of the Holy Alliance) banned ministers from bonking their staff which sounds uncontroversial but was silent on them bonking the staff of the minister in the office down the corridor.  So the net effect was probably positive in that staff having affairs with their ministerial boss would gain experience through cross-exposure to other portfolio areas although there's the obvious moral hazard in that they might be tempted to conduct trysts just to engineer a transfer in the hope of career advancement.  There are worse reasons for having an affair and a bonk for a new job seems a small price to pay.  It's been done before.

Bonk in progress, California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, May 2024.

Bonk in the sense of “a blow to the head” was in May 2024 adapted for use in memes and other publicity tools associated with the protests staged on US university campuses demanding the institutions’ administrators divest from economic and other engagements with Israel and in support of the cause of the Palestinian people for (variously) statehood or freedom from repression.  The scenes were reminiscent of Vietnam War era protests but the emergence of the water-cooler jug as an icon of political dissent was an unexpected moment of levity.  The origin of that was a viral (“bonk, bonk, bonk”) video clip showing an unidentified protester at the California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt bonking a uniformed law-enforcement officer on the helmet with an empty jug (believed to be a capacity of 5 US gallons (19 litres)) of the type which sits atop a water cooler.

Although recalling the similarly alliterative “burn baby, burn” slogan chanted during the Watts race riots in Los Angeles in August 1965, the “bonk, bonk, bonk” was more a symbol of, if not exactly passive resistance, then certainly something short of actual violence although in a legal sense it may have been an instance of both assault and battery as well as other offences.  Around the country, stickers, posters and the inevitable T-shirts appeared within hours with slogans such as “Water Jug, Come and Take It” and “This machine bonks fascists”, a reference to the “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS” message the left-wing US folk singer Woody Guthrie (1912–1967) wrote on his guitars.  Whether the water jug (bonking and not) will endure as a symbol of protest will depend, like many aspects of language, on whether it gains a sustained critical mass of use.

The "bonk, bonk, bonk" viral video.  In the conventional sense the production values weren't high but that very quality of authenticity accounted for its success.