Stir Crazy

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yes, hi. My name is Jennifer Strauss, and I’m calling today from Traverse City, Michigan.

Hi, Jennifer. How are you doing?

I’m doing really well. How are you guys doing?

We’re doing well. What’s going on in Traverse City?

So I have a question that kind of came out of a recent situation that I’m in.

I’m an extremely active and energetic person who has recently had foot surgery.

Oh.

And my recovery required that I not walk and be very still for three weeks.

Wow.

Friends who know me really well have been calling and asking me how I’m doing.

And I find myself telling them that I’m going a bit stir-crazy.

So last weekend I was listening to the show,

And I thought about myself telling them that I’m going a bit stir-crazy,

And I thought I would give you guys a call and just find out the origins of that saying

And what does it really mean.

Oh, gosh. Well, our sympathies, first of all.

So now you’re bionic, right?

Oh, yeah, now I’m bionic.

Yeah, it was surgery due to triathlon, extreme triathlon for many years.

It sort of did a number on one of my feet.

So I’m very grateful to have this done so I can get back out there again.

So Martha, she’s super athletic, and she’s stuck at home for three weeks, and she’s stir-crazy.

Oh, gosh.

That’s just awful.

I really feel for you, especially if you’ve been so active before.

Well, I’m wondering, when you’re sitting around there thinking about the term,

Do you have any theories that come to mind about why it might be stir-crazy?

You know, until lately, I’d never really thought about it.

Oh, where did that come from?

Some origins have to be in reference to people who have been trapped inside or not able to move a lot.

But the stir part, I didn’t understand, you know, and certainly don’t want to use the crazy part to offend anyone.

You know what I mean?

Right.

In terms of mental health or whatever.

Right.

So I just wondered about, you know, the origins.

So trapped inside and not able to move a lot.

Indeed.

Well, that would make a lot of sense.

I know for years I thought it just meant you were wanting to stir.

But you couldn’t stir, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

But it doesn’t have anything to do with the verb, actually.

Right.

Stir is an old word that means prison.

Oh, my goodness.

There it is.

Yeah, so if you’re in the stir, you’re in prison.

Yeah.

There it is.

I did not know that.

Doing a dime in the stir.

Very interesting.

Yeah.

So being locked up in prison and feeling that, oh, my goodness, there it is.

Very interesting.

Yeah, it’s a term that may go back to the language of the Ramani,

The people who originated in northern India and kind of spread out all over the world.

But, yeah, stir is an old slang term for prison.

Very interesting.

Well, I certainly don’t feel like I’m in prison, but at times it has felt similar.

Yeah, your movement is limited for sure.

So the Romany word is something like stirraben or sterapin or something like that.

Something like that, yeah.

And we find it back as far as 1835.

Mm—

Stirraben a jail.

Wow.

Yeah.

And then stir-crazy itself is only a little over 100 years old, right?

Correct.

Yeah.

So that was coined in the early part of the 1900s.

Interesting.

So we hope we helped you pass the time for three minutes anyway.

I thank you very much.

Very interesting.

So thanks a lot for answering my question.

Our pleasure.

Sure thing.

Good luck with your recovery.

Oh, it’s going well.

Thank you very much.

Oh, good.

Good.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Stir crazy.

You can find a bunch of songs on Google Books that it shows up in.

There’s some of them in the Romani language.

Oh, really?

The people we used to know is gypsies, right?

-huh.

My mush is leld to stir-a-bin, to stir-a-bin, to stir-a-bin.

My mush is leld to stir-a-bin, to the tan where Mandy gins.

I don’t know what it means, but stir-a-bin is that word where we got the stir part and turned into stir-a-bin.

Means prison and the stir entered into English.

Oh, that’s fascinating. Is that a song

About being in prison? I believe so.

I could not find the origin of it. It just

Shows up in one of my slang dictionaries and they don’t explain

It. That’s so interesting. It actually

Sounds like just sort of

Pacing around in a cell, you know?

Like a tiger in a cage.

Going wall to wall all day long.

Stirbing. Going stir crazy.

Well, we’ll help you with whatever comes to

Mind, whether you’re trapped at home or somewhere else.

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