The attempt to catalog all the ways that Americans can go crazy dates at least to 1840, when the Census included a question on “idiocy/insanity.” From those two simple categories, we now have more than 300 separate disorders; they are listed in a 943-page book called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM for short.
Tag Archives: dictionary
Why "Tar Baby" Is Such a Sticky Phrase
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is taking flak this week for his use of the term “tar baby” while addressing a group of Iowa Republicans on July 29 in a reference to Boston’s troubled Big Dig highway project. Was he offensive in doing so
Word Up
The idea of a Slang dictionary is in many ways counterintuitive — or, one might say, a bit bonkers. Slang by nature is cool, and dictionaries are uncool
Abu Ghraib photos were ‘big shock,’ undermined U.S. ideals
The photograph was shocking: a hooded detainee, in U.S.