Tuesday 16 October 2007

Phrase of the Day 154: 'round the bend'

"round the bend"


definition: a little mad/crazy

examples: 'My flatmate is driving me round the bend with his loud music'
'I think my teacher is round the bend'

origin: The 'bend' is the curve always placed in the entrance drive of Victorian mental hospitals. Straight drives were the characteristic of stately homes and bent ones of asylums to screen the inmates from view and vise versa.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How can that be the origin when this phrase appears in Aristophanes's play 'The Clouds'?

Unknown said...

Itdidb appeared in Aristophanese, and was probably then used for the description of madness,as it is true mental health hospitals (or asylums) were hidden behind hills and woods by use of curved drives leading to their doors.

Unknown said...

It did appeared in Aristophanese, and was probably then used for the description of madness,as it is true mental health hospitals (or asylums) were hidden behind hills and woods by use of curved drives leading to their doors.