Nuthouse, Nutty, and Why Nuts Are Associated With Mental Illness

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Tori, and I’m calling from Madison, Alabama.

Hi, Tori. Welcome to the program.

You’ve been, in a way, very supportive of me because when I had finished night shift, I’d listen to you guys, and it would keep me awake on my ride home.

Oh, that’s so nice. What kind of work do you do?

At the time, I worked in the hospital, but now I do psychiatric home health.

Okay, well, we’re glad to be some small part of that. And thank you for doing the hard work. We really appreciate it. What can we do for you today, Tori?

So I had a question and I’ve heard the term and then randomly thought, hey, where did it come from?

So the term is nut house. And I was just thinking, you know, it’s usually described for a mental health facility, but it’s not like we’re storing almonds in a house. You know?

So to refer to like a psychiatric unit or a psychiatric hospital, they call it a nuthouse.

Right. And do you have a sense of it being negative or pejorative?

When I’ve heard it used, it was in a negative context.

Yeah, we see the term nuthouse for a psychiatric facility going back to the turn of the 20th century or so. But to really understand this term and its use, we have to look at the word nuts and nutty.

In the early 17th century, the word nuts meant something that was actually really positive. It was something that was a source of delight or a satisfying source of pleasure. So, you know, nuts was something very, very positive.

And then it underwent this really interesting semantic progression because by the 18th century, nuts appeared in phrases like to be nuts on someone, which meant to be infatuated with somebody or really, really fond of them. And if you had a high opinion of yourself, you might be described as being nuts upon yourself.

And then over time, nuts extended as an adjective to mean somebody who’s really, really, really enthusiastic, really, really fond of something. And just kind of emotionally extreme, like weirdly obsessed, just super, super intense. And so that’s when nuts became associated with the idea of being unstable. And the same with nutty.

And then there’s another thread involving nuts, which is the fact that at the same time, we talk about the word nut applying to the head. You know, it’s hard and round like a nut. And people tell you to use your nut, meaning to think for yourself. And all of that kind of blended to the point where we get the term nut house, which now, you know, you probably wouldn’t use in polite company.

I will tell you that when I dropped out of college for a couple of years, I worked in a psychiatric facility. And, you know, the language that you use there, you have to use a lot of morbid humor, right? And maybe terms that you wouldn’t use elsewhere out in the world, I’m sure you can identify. And people who work in those kinds of situations sometimes have a kind of gallows humor or a slang that other people would not understand. And I would put nuthouse in that category as well.

Okay. So I guess the term came from maybe somebody who was grandiose?

No, it’s really somebody who’s just too, too, just overly enthusiastic, just emotionally extreme and weirdly obsessed. And then that led to the idea of somebody being nutty just a little too much.

Do we know why, Martha, in the beginning, that nut came into it, though? Why somebody could be off their nut or why nut was the word they chose in the first place?

Well, it is weird, isn’t it? Because it was such a positive term to begin with. But why was it even positive? Why being nuts was a positive term, meaning enthusiastic for?

Well, originally, I think it had to do with just nuts being satisfying and delicious, right?

Oh, okay. Very good. Yeah.

Well, Tori, thank you so much for the question today. We really appreciate it. And again, thank you for the hard work. And by that, I mean everything that you do to help other people get their lives together.

Well, thanks. And thanks for keeping me awake on my drive home.

Our pleasure. Anytime. Call again sometime. All right.

All right. All right. Bye bye.

Take care.

Bye.

Where are you in the world and what is the language that you speak to make sense of that world?

Share it with us. 877-929-9673.

That’s a toll free number 24 hours a day in the United States and Canada. If you’re somewhere else in the world, we’ve got a lot of ways to talk to us. You can find them all on our website at waywordradio.org.