Origin of Lunatic Fringe

Here’s a here’s a did you know martha a did you know okay you know the expression lunatic french refers to say people on the far right or far left who kind of are wacky or nutty or okay.

You’re not talking about my jacket. A little crazy.

Well, interestingly enough, that lunatic fringe comes from a reference to hair.

Oh, that kind of fringe? Yeah, the fringe is a word for bangs. A lunatic fringe was a curly style of wearing your bangs.

I’m finding that there’s a lot of evidence collected by my colleagues in the American Dialect Society. They’ve been posting about it. It’s been discussed in a number of circles, and it’s a pretty clear etymological path.

Interesting, huh? Really?

Yeah, so a lunatic fringe existed long before as just a way of referring to really frizzy or nutty-looking bangs of your hair hanging over your forehead. And then it was borrowed into politics.

I’ll be darned. I had no idea.

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