Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Where did the word-of-the-moment come from? To the Bat Cave!

Where did the word-of-the-moment come from? To the Bat Cave!

Last updated on: February 28, 2016 at 2:48 pm by Fred Clark

Where did the word-of-the-moment come from? To the Bat Cave! 2016-02-28T14:48:59-05:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Note: This post is PG-13 due to mild Pauline profanity.*

Thanks to Sen. Lindsey Graham — and now also to Trump media surrogate Scottie Nell Hughes — the salty, but expressive, idiom “batshit” is having something of a moment.

This is, of course, a word you’re not supposed to say on live TV or in front of the children, but it’s spiking in use these days for the same reason that any word does: because of its precision and thus its necessity. We are seeing something in our politics, exemplified in the juvenile free-for-all of this week’s Republican presidential primary debate, and we need to identify it. We need to classify what it is we’re seeing and to articulate that to ourselves and to others so that we can calibrate an appropriate response.

The English language provides a multitude of potential adjectives to classify this moment in Republican politics, many of which, unfortunately, draw implicit or explicit analogies to mental illness. Using those words pejoratively can be both rude and harmful — stigmatizing people who have mental illness. But in addition to being offensive, they’re unsatisfying because they’re inaccurate and imprecise. The whatever-we-call-it behavior we’re actually seeing in Republican primary politics isn’t actually analogous to the behavior of people with mental illness. The former is shameful, the latter is not and should not be shamed by association.** So those words won’t do here. Even if using a word like “insane” weren’t hurtful, the word still wouldn’t apply because this behavior is something other than that.

Other, more detached, attempts to say that same sort of thing won’t really do either. Words like “irrational” may be accurate up to a point, but they seem incomplete. So we reach for more colorful terms that might do a better job of containing the multivaried aspects of what we’re watching. The irrationality, yes, but also the coarseness of it, the spectacle of it, the elements of rage and of misapprehension (in both senses), the realization that it’s out of control and that no one knows how to rein it back in.

And so thousands of observers flung adjectives in the direction of this thing until, finally, someone said “batshit” and the aptness and clarity of that term rang like a bell. (Sen. Graham was far from the first to use the term, but his prominence as a senator helped spread its use among the punditocracy and the chattering classes.)

The term works here, I think, partly because a coarse word is necessary to capture a coarse and coarsening phenomenon. Trumpism — and the attempts of Cruz, Rubio, et. al. to out-Trump Trump — is partly a willingness to say repugnant things out loud that manners, mores, morals, and decency previously prevented anyone from saying in such contexts. A word that refers to something repugnant, and that is itself something we’re not supposed to say, conveys that better than a more polite term could.

The word articulates the mood and the moment so perfectly that it seems to have separated observers and commenters into two camps: Those now applying the term to identify what we’re seeing, and those scrupulously and uncomfortably avoiding doing so.

Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

And but so anyway, where did this lovely-in-its-unloveliness idiom come from? I would’ve guessed that it originated with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. It just sounds like something he would have written. But the first usage cited by the Oxford English Dictionary is from a more infamous source. It cites Lt. William Calley, the American soldier who oversaw a massacre of civilians in My Lai, Vietnam, who spoke of soldiers “going batshit.” The OED says this was military slang dating back to the 1950s, a variant of the earlier “apeshit,” which may derive from the feces-flinging behavior of some stressed captive primates.

I’m leaning here on “Lexie Kahn,” the awesomely nicknamed “word snoop” exploring the etymology of “batshit” in this 2013 blog post. See also this post at English Language & Usage, which has the full citation from the OED, along with additional speculation about the evolution of this term. The discussion there speculates that batshit likely incorporates the connotations of “batty” and “bats in the belfry.”

Since batshit comes from military slang, I think it may also allude to the old saying about mushrooms which, like low-ranking soldiers, are “kept in the dark and fed shit.” But that’s just a guess, and I’m not sure if that joke actually predates the adoption of “batshit” in the 1950s.

What I was surprised to learn, delving into this etymology, is that our distinctions of shades of meaning for various animal prefixes — bull-, bat-, ape-, etc. — are a fairly recent development. The use of shit in the Pauline sense — meaning something filthy and worthless — goes way, way back, and it wasn’t unusual for speakers to add some animal prefix for a bit of flair, yet we hadn’t yet settled on a taxonomy of various meanings for those various things. Thus, for example, although the 19th century had a rich vocabulary for P.T. Barnum’s balderdash, hornswoggle, hogwash and hokum, we hadn’t yet settled on bullshit as specifically referring to that kind of malarkey. That came later.

We can find early uses of batshit to mean what we would now refer to as bullshit, but that usage didn’t last because language doesn’t require two words for the same thing. And so now the two terms have clearly distinct meanings. We might describe that distinction by saying that someone who believes and embraces too much bullshit will consequently go batshit, and that having to deal with such a person will so tax one’s patience that one may be tempted to go apeshit in response. Oddly, both of these folks — the one who has gone batshit and the one who has gone apeshit in response — can be said to have lost their shit. And yet, should they both calm down and regain their bearings, neither will be said to have thereby found their shit.

The actual origins of this term and its usage may be less significant than its retroactive etymology. Etymology — the root meaning and original meaning of words — tends to get carried along in the connotations of those words, even after those root meanings and origins have fallen away from its later denotation. But sometimes the arrow points in the other direction and usage creates a new root-meaning projected back onto the word, and that retroactive origin comes to shape its connotations.

Think, for example, of how flounder has come to be used as a verb. This originated as a corruption of the verb founder, which was usually applied to ships disabled and sinking on a rock or a reef, but also, by extension and analogy, could be applied to anything or anyone in a similar sinking state. The invention of the airplane cut us off from a lot of maritime language and now that use of the verb founder is mainly only found in old books. Today, we flounder instead of founder and the implicit analogy is no longer a comparison to a ship sinking on a reef but to a fish out of water, flailing and flopping and gasping in its death throes.

I suspect that, similarly, the connotations of batshit derive more from its retroactive etymology than its technical origin. It suggests, I think, something rank and foul-smelling that has been festering at the bottom of a cave. (There’s also the matter of bat- as a prefix, which carries a whole other set of literary allusions for many of us — a touch of Gotham’s corruption and criminality, and maybe just a hint of Arkham.)

Why did I just spend 1,500-some words discussing the etymology and connotations of a crude bit of American slang? Because right now that seems to be a welcome distraction from thinking about the state of American politics which have gotten downright … well, you know.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

* Growing up attending a fundamentalist Christian school and church youth group, we considered this to be rather severe profanity. We did not cuss, but we knew some of the words and assigned them all a hierarchy of severity. In ascending order of wickedness: the h-word, the d-word, the s-word, the f-word. At Timothy Christian School, this was quantifiable, as either of those first two would get you a demerit, but either of the latter two would get you four demerits. In youth group, the use of the h- or d-word would prompt only a stern recitation of Philippians 4:8, but the use of those more severe words prompted genuine dismay — evidence of rebellion and backsliding and grave concerns for the state of one’s soul that would need to be corrected at the next altar-call opportunity to re-dedicate one’s life to Christ.

While we often piously revisited Philippians 4:8 as an anti-swearing prooftext, no one ever made the connection between that verse and Philippians 3:8, which our King James Bibles cleans up as “I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ.”

** This is something that I regret not learning sooner, and something I still am trying to learn to handle better. I want to avoid using language that could be interpreted as disparaging or shaming people with mental illnesses and so I have learned not to use the word “insane” as an insult. The trickier thing — and the part where I still need practice and help — has to do with the whole universe of non-medical, generic pejoratives that are also sometimes applied pejoratively against those with mental illnesses. This is tricky because it’s so pervasive. Huge chunks and regions of our language and idiom for criticizing ideas, ideologies and arguments draws on or alludes to notions of “madness” (and vice versa).

So I’ve come to rely on more cartoonish, goofier words like “gonzo” or “bonkers,” hoping that such terms are too far removed from any clinical or medical application to be mistaken for a reference to the realm of mental illness. They also tend to be newer words — and thus words that don’t carry the baggage of an earlier era’s ignorance. I hope that works — that it allows the effect of my words to match my intent. If it’s not working, please let me know and I’ll try to keep learning.

Uncategorized

agnotology

Trump

Previous Post

February 28, 2016

Sunday favorites

Next Post

February 29, 2016 Trump: 1980s punchline turned 21st-century demagogue

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who had a dream of a ladder reaching to heaven?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Abraham Jacob Joseph Daniel