Okay, so I'm reading a movie review, and I happen to comment out loud, "that was the most schizophrenic movie review I've ever read!" And this moron person takes me to task! She took me to task for that! "Oh, that's not what the word means, that's completely inappropriate, disassociative* personality this, improper use that, stereotype the other thing." Blah, blah, bleh.
BOY did I lay into her.
I'll spare you the evisceration. But let me say just this: people need to realize that the protean nomenclatural faddishness of the medical establishment does not trump the stately procession of the English language. Every reputable American dictionary has a sense #2 for the word "schizophrenic," and they all pretty much agree on what it means.
In fact, there are two separate ways to go with this post from here, and I can't decide between them. I'm not sure whether that should be considered ironic.
The first path would be to expound upon what ought to be a very obvious fact: specialized technical or scientific jargon does not somehow "outrank" the common English definitions of words! The definitions in the dictionary are in there for a reason. They represent accepted and acceptable usage for every English-speaking red-blooded American. No matter whether experts in any field adopt ever-more-specialized definitions for ever-more-specialized uses - the TRUE meaning of the word is not rendered obsolete, just because the medicos have moved on to a newer and buzzier catchword!
The second possible route for this post would be to rail against the medical establishment's perverse urge to keep changing up the name of a disease as soon as the existing term has become widely-enough known to have acquired a pejorative sense in the language at large.
But why bother going into it! The whole thing is almost entirely self-obvious. It's tedious. It's depressing.
Okay, maybe I'll make it a 3-parter, and explore both possibilities at a later date. Or at two separate later dates. Or at no separate later dates.
4 comments:
I'm a schizophrenic and I, too, use the word in the same context as you. I didn't know it was in the dictionary though. Will have to check that out.
Andrew in Alabama
The 4th Avenue Blues
Thanks for commenting, Andrew!
I generally rely on print dictionaries, and I definitely checked two before making the bold claim of "every reputable!" But if was going to say that, then I should have at least included a citation. The two that I consulted were an old decaying Webster's and a 1990's American Heritage Collegiate Edition.
The online American Heritage (available at bartelby.com) runs it thus:
[Schizophrenic, adjective sense 2] 2. Of, relating to, or characterized by the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic elements.
Myself, I prefer the More descriptive route. For example "That review was dumb as shit."
It was actually pretty intelligently written, judged in its individual aspects and not by how incompatibly they fit together.
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