"Don't have a conniption fit," my mother would say when one of us kids was working up a good head of steam on a tantrum. Conniption is such a fine word. Let's take a closer look at it...
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Americanisms, Old and New by John Stephen Farmer (c. 1889) explains that conniption fit is "a synonym for hysteria." The dictionary continues: "A word common in New England and among the descendants of New Englanders in the State of New York. Also a state of collapse."
Well, now I know it pre-dates my mother by a long while. But how far back does the word conniption go and where'd it come from? The Online Etymology Dictionary has an answer!
Conniption (n.) "attack of hysteria," 1833, in conniption fit, American English, origin uncertain; perhaps a fanciful formation related to corruption, which was used in a sense of "anger" from 1799, or from English dialectal canapshus "ill-tempered, captious," which probably is a corruption of captious.
That's pretty interesting... but what is equally interesting is a quote that OED referenced, which appears in John Russell Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms (c. 1848):
CONNIPTION FIT. This term is exclusively used by the fair sex, who can best explain its meaning. Ex. "George if you keep coming home so late to dinner I shall have a conniption." As near as I can judge, conniption fits are tantrums.
So, I guess my mother's mother's mother could have been throwing a conniption fit and been warned to "lay off" (although not in those words!) by her mother.
And so it goes...
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| Even adults can throw conniption fits. An 1862 cartoon caricature of Christina Rossetti, by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, showing her having a tantrum (aka, conniption fit) after reading The Times review of her poetry. The Bridgeman Art Library, Object 392836 Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48516342 |
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