Case File #018.10.30: DELIRIUM

If we trace the noun delirium all the way back to its earliest tangible roots, we find that it started with the Latin prepositional phrase de lire, which meant “from the furrow” or “off the track.” The ancient Romans transformed the phrase into the verb deliriare, which initially meant “to wander from the furrow (while plowing)” but was later used figuratively to mean “to deviate from the rational or emotional norm” or “to become deranged,” and from this they derived the Latin noun delirium and used it to mean “insanity.” When the noun passed directly into English circa 1590, the meaning was softened a bit to “a temporary state of acute mental or emotional instability resulting from high fever, intoxication, shock, or other such causes,” but the informal sense in which delirium is softened even further to “frenzied excitement” or “ecstasy”—as in, for example, The sports fans jumped about in delirium after their team's championship victory —didn't appear until the mid-nineteenth century.

©2018 Michael R. Gates

Case File #018.10.11: ZOMBIE

Zombie became part of the English lexicon circa 1871, coming first to American English via the voodoo cults in the Southern United States and the Caribbean. One theory has it that the word was borrowed directly from the name of a snake-like god who was once worshiped throughout West Africa, but many etymologists and linguists believe zombie was derived from either the Kimbundu word nzambi, which means “god,” or the Kikongo word zumbi, which means “fetish” (religious, not sexual) or “ghost.” The sense in which zombie metaphorically and often humorously refers to the slow-witted, the lethargic, or the clueless first appeared in American English circa 1936, and not long after, restaurateur and bartender Donn Beach invented the now famous cocktail that bears the moniker zombie, most likely naming it such because the drink's high alcohol content makes those who consume it seem slow-witted, lethargic, and clueless.

©2018 Michael R. Gates