Crazy

I have no succinct idea of what the word "Crazy" means. I only know that it's inflammatory, inappropriate, affectionate, scathing, appreciative, and gently blunt. Somewhere in my fantasy of the Internet is a vast dictionary where words are given their appropriate definitions, and their appropriate definitions contradict, sprawl, and tunnel under their border walls. Their border walls also fall into disuse and the meanings of words cease to go anywhere near them. And the definitions seethe and hide and run on for hours and hours.

I guess what I'm saying is that I often come upon words that any normal dictionary is unable to do  anything more than abridge to the point of total misrepresentation, because a full service definition for many words will run you a dozen pages, and can start to push your dictionary way farther into art than you wanted to go, and result in your ridiculous dictionary project carrying on for several hundred small print volumes. My library doesn't carry one of those dictionaries. There is no dictionary like that on the Internet. 

Shakespeare said, in the person of Hamlet "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." He could totally have been talking to me! And he is so right, because Shakespeare was like that, but that doesn't mean that, wait, I want Horatio to say it back, here:

Hamlet: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Horatio: You are right again, Mr. Hamlet,
But note that I have thought,
Of many things that heaven and earth,
Will never get to see.


This is not a preparation for me to give you the complete definition of the word "Crazy". I could conceivably be interested in doing that, but it exceeds my space here, my time. To undertake such a task I could not just blog for one day on the word, rather I would have to turn over my whole blog to it. Are you ready for a blog all on "Crazy"? Me neither! I need to talk about moose occasionally. I need to reorder the world as I see fit. I need to tell you about fall! I am no specialist!

Nevertheless  this delicate, insulting, sloppy, piercing, unwise, colorful word, "Crazy", comes up quite a bit at my work. I have to use it. There are so many people I deal with every day with whom the word "Crazy" is my solace, my explanation, my way forward. Does it mean that I'm running around the library muttering about all the crazy people all the time? Well, sort of, but I don't mean to do that. I mean, I'm not aware I'm muttering like that. If you see me doing it, just, maybe, quietly say to me, in a soft, gentle voice "Er, excuse me, but you're sort of muttering a little about all the crazy people."  Thanks.

I think I will leave it there for now. Tomorrow I will pursue the details of crazy people at my library. Normally I avoid these sorts of exciting cliffhangers, but now that my blog is entirely devoted to the word "Crazy" it will all be one great big continuous discussion, so you should probably remember to come back and read this tomorrow to refresh your memory, or you can memorize it, or just hope I change my mind and write about something else tomorrow, or figure you'll work out whatever context you need to when you're faced with whatever I write tomorrow, or you can simply never read my blog ever again because you don't read "Crazy" blogs.

Any of those will work, but of course there are other options. There always are.






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