# When Did People Start Using..... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 23, 2002, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-start-using/138338 "2002-11-23T12:16:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Madawc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@Madawc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Madawc)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-start-using/138338/1 "2002-11-23T12:16:30Z")
The word MAD (which means crazy/insane) to mean the word ANGRY (which means pissed off) The only place i can see in my past is that Sesame Street taught this by using faces. Cartoon Faces were used like Happy (with a happy face smiling) Mad (steam from ears and red and pissed off). The incorrect usage of the word MAD has got to stop. But i would love to know how this incorrect usage became mainstream. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-start-using/138338/2 "2002-11-23T15:55:17Z")
What makes you think it’s incorrect? The first definition at [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com) is “Angry; resentful. See Synonyms at angry”. The definition of “insane” is also still correct, but its use is not as prevalent as it once was. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-start-using/138338/3 "2002-11-23T17:18:37Z")
I suppose “mad” can mean angry to the point of insanity. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2002, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-start-using/138338/4 "2002-11-23T17:50:52Z")
**Enola Straight** is close. According to the OED online, this goes back to the 14th century as both a transitive and intransitive verb: > [@](#): > > 1. trans. To make mad, in various senses of the adj.; to madden, make insane; to render foolish; to bewilder, stupefy, daze; to infuriate, enrage. Now rare exc. U.S. colloq., to exasperate. > > 1399 LANGL. Rich. Redeles I. 63 And no soule persone to punnyshe e wrongis; And at maddid i men. Ibid. II. 132 With many derke mystis at maddid her eyne > > 1. a. intr. To be or to become mad; to act like a madman, rage, behave furiously. Now rare. > > a1366 CHAUCER Rom. Rose 1072 Richesse a robe of purpre on hadde, Ne trowe not that I lye or madde. 1382 WYCLIF Acts xxvi. 24 Festus with greet vois seyde, Poul, thou maddist, or wexist wood. c1386 CHAUCER Miller’s T. 373 Suffiseth thee, but if thy wittes madde To han as greet a grace as Noe hadde. c1394 P. Pl. Crede 280 ‘Alas!’ qua e frier ‘almost y madde in mynde, To sen hou is Minoures many men begyleth!’ > > 1. ‘Beside oneself’ with anger; moved to uncontrollable rage; furious. Now only colloq. (In many dialects in Great Britain and the U.S. the ordinary word for ‘angry’.) > > a1300 Cursor M. 17595 For-i aa Iuus war full medd, air sandes come again vn-spedd. (Some of the Old English symbols don’t translate in cut and paste: sorry.) People in the 19th century US revived this older usage as slang in both the adjectival and noun forms: > [@](#): > > Madness, fury, anger. n > > 1834 in J. S. Bassett Southern Plantation Overseer (1925) 65, I will be darnde if I can do anythinge with them and they all ways in the mads. So there is absolutely nothing incorrect about this usage. It is as old and enshrined in the language as almost any other word we use. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-start-using/138338/5 "2002-11-24T12:17:45Z")
My very-off-the-cuff observation is that in British English “mad” usually means “insane” and in the United States “mad” means “angry”. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-start-using/138338/6 "2002-11-24T14:49:30Z")
Another differance is that in the UK, to be crazy means to be insane, but in the US it can also mean enraged. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-start-using/138338/7 "2002-11-24T15:21:26Z")
I dunno. Crazy=angry in the U.S. tends to appear only in a couple of idioms (“he went crazy”). I don’t ever recall observing someone pointing to a person who was really upset and remarking “He’s crazy” unless the angered person was really ranting and raving and throwing himself about as if he was insane. “He’s mad,” however, can be used in any context from complete rage to mere sullen displeasure. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-start-using/138338/8 "2002-11-24T15:27:40Z")
On re-reading **Casdave** ’s post, I guess we’re not that far apart. I initially read “enraged” as “really angry,” but it certainly carries a violent connotation. ---
**Author:** ![Beruang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@Beruang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beruang)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2002, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-people-start-using/138338/9 "2002-11-24T17:35:06Z")
From our friends at Random House: > **[Penguin Random House](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com?date=19980717)** > > Committed to publishing great books, connecting readers and authors globally, and spreading the love of reading. "The original sense of the word mad is ‘mentally disturbed; insane; deranged; crazy’, a sense still in popular use (though no longer in medical use). The word, common to other Germanic languages, is found in English about a long as there has been an English in which to find it. "While mad meaning ‘angry’ hasn’t been in English quite this long, it is still very well documented: first found before 1300, it was used in Shakespeare and the King James Bible, Trollope, William James, Yeats, Flannery O’Connor, and John Steinbeck. "Despite this, people have been objecting to this sense since the late eighteenth century, with varying degrees of hostility: sometimes it is called “colloquial,” sometimes a “vulgarism,” sometimes “careless,” sometimes “informal,” and sometimes “slang.” In recent American usage, though, hardly anyone objects to the word; it is standard. Most dictionaries don’t give it any label–even the generally conservative American Heritage Dictionary, in its third edition, leaves it unlabelled, though the second edition had called it “informal.” Contemporary usage books usually ignore it as not even requiring mention, some simply call it “informal.” "In British English, mad meaning ‘angry’ is still informal and is something of a usage issue (and is often considered an Americanism, natch). "