the.com/bedlam
Bedlam now means wild chaos, though it began as the name of a London psychiatric hospital.
means A scene of wild uproar and confusion, with noise and disorder flying in every direction.
from Bedlam is a worn-down pronunciation of 'Bethlehem' — specifically the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem in London, which by the 1400s was being used to house the mentally ill. Conditions there were notoriously chaotic and cruel, and the public could even pay to gawk at patients as a form of entertainment. By the 1600s, 'bedlam' had leaked out of the hospital's name entirely and into ordinary speech, becoming a general word for any scene of noisy chaos and confusion.
- origin
- corruption of Bethlehem, as in London's Bethlem Hospital
- the hospital
- notorious asylum, tourists paid to watch inmates
- word drift
- place name became synonym for pure chaos
- still open
- Bethlem Royal Hospital operates today, minus the gawking