Usage of 20th century U.S. slang "If you don't think X you're crazy!"

March 6, 2023 1:18 AM

Was reading S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders when I came across this phrase for emphazing how much something hurt: "If you don't think that hurts, you're crazy!" A search only turned up a match for Catcher in the Rye. Was this ever widespread American slang and if so, was there a region it was typical of?
posted by johngoren to Writing & Language (9 answers total)

Best answer: I grew up in central Illinois in the 60s and 70s, and this sounds really normal to me, except instead of "you're crazy," I'd say, "you're out of your mind."
posted by FencingGal at 3:29 AM on March 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I grew up in the South in the 80s, equally common there/then. It has a very common-parlance feel to it, I can hear it in dialogue from movies and tv and interviews (so I'm guessing this is not just regional, maybe even international—I'm pretty sure it's used in British English, too). It also has a very young person feel to it, which fits the Outsiders and Catcher contexts. Maybe that's the wrong way to cast it, but it does feel really colloquial and informal, maybe even unconsidered or offered in the heat of the moment when excitement wins out over careful choice of words.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 4:11 AM on March 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Sounds completely normal to me too, grew up in OH in the 80s.

Is this even slang? Depending on what's being referred to it may be hyperbolic — "If you don't like the classic color theme of MeFi, you're crazy!" But if it's like a broken leg or something in your quote, I think it's just a phrase using common words with their common meanings. It's sort of a contrapositive construction: "if you [not this] then you [not reasonable]"
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:34 AM on March 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

I agree with SaltySalticid. I wouldn't call this slang. "You're crazy" is a normal thing people say to mean "No reasonable person would think/feel/act that way." Often used jokingly in situations where it's clear that you're not actually questioning the person's sanity, just emphasizing how different their opinion is from yours. ("You think lemon bars are better than brownies? You're crazy!") Also used in situations where the other person really does seem unreasonable. "("You're quitting your job to be a poet? You're crazy!") But this use of crazy is becoming somewhat less common because these days many people consider it insensitive to those with mental illness.
posted by Redstart at 6:23 AM on March 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Rephrasing it to you're crazy if you don't think X shows healthy contemporary usage.
posted by zamboni at 6:26 AM on March 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

Google Books search for "you're crazy" BEFORE "if you don't think" likewise indicates it's reasonably common usage.
posted by zamboni at 6:31 AM on March 6, 2023

Response by poster: Probably didn't explain it well enough, in Outsiders, there's a very specific kind of idiom I'm talking about. And I don't mean like in the broader sense of "if you don't think Biden won you're crazy." More like for emphasis of something that happened to you. Maybe it's just how Pony Boy rolls tho. Thanks for the answers!
posted by johngoren at 6:38 AM on March 6, 2023

Author S. E. Hinton is from my hometown of Tulsa, OK, and when I read her books in the mid 80s almost* everything sounded either just like my friends or like my friends’ older relatives. That particular usage of “you’re crazy” didn’t seem out of place, but the frequency with which it’s used is specific to Pony Boy.

* I don’t remember if “socs” (as a term for popular kids from families with money) is in just The Outsiders or all of her books, but it was not a term anybody of any age used in my experience. In my school we would have just said “popular kids,” although I should be clear that almost everyone in my school was at least middle class if not upper middle class. “Greasers” wasn’t really in use by the 80s either (“shop kids” maybe) but it read as authentic, if quaint, because we all knew Rebel Without a Cause and, well, Grease.
posted by fedward at 7:25 AM on March 6, 2023 [2 favorites]

Born in 1959 and grew up in Tulsa. I can say with complete confidence that I heard this, or something almost identical to it, at least a thousand times before the age of 18.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 4:35 PM on March 6, 2023