Help with a study!

[Rubina]

I´m doing a study on synonyms for crazy in English and if you´ve got 5 minutes, I´d love if you´d be a test subject. It´s really just about sorting words into categories, and you can´t fail ;D

These are the categories:

• Mental illness
  
• Danger
  
• Oddness
  
• Foolishness/ Silliness
  
• Enthusiasm
  

and these are the words to be sorted:

• mad
  
• balmy
  
• berserk
  
• batty
  
• bananas
  
• bonkers
  
• daft
  
• dotty
  
• kooky
  
• off your rocker
  
• insane
  
• nuts
  
• nutso
  
• nutsy
  
• nutters
  
• mental
  
• deranged
  
• demented
  
• cracked
  
• flipped
  
• fanatic
  
• loony
  
• gaga
  
• disturbed
  
• unhinged
  
• whacky
  

Words can be sorted into more than one category, and you can add comments if you like. Put a + after a word to mark it as positive, or a - if you consider it negative.

Please add whether you´re a native speaker (if so, where from), if not please state what your mother tongue is.

Thank you!!!

[Hanna]

Sure, I can be a test subject. I'm not a native English speaker, though, my mother tongue is Norwegian.

Mental Illness:
- mad
- insane
- nutso
- mental
- cracked
- loony
- flipped
- disturbed
- deranged
- batty
- bonkers
I think all the words in this category are negative.

Danger:
- fanatic

Oddness:
- berserk
- off your rocker
- deranged
- demented
- gaga
- unhinged
- balmy
- nutso
- mental
- cracked
- dotty

Foolishness/silliness
- bananas
- daft
- nuts
- nutsy
- nutters
- flipped
- whacjy
- kooky

Enthusiasm
- fanatic

Hope that was helpful!

[Dominique]

These are the categories:


* Mental illness
Mad (as in crazy)
berserk
bananas
bonkers
insane
nuts
disturbed
unhinged
mental
deranged
demented
cracked
flipped

* Danger
Mad (as in angry)
berserk
deranged
unhinged

* Oddness
fanatic
balmy
batty
daft
dotty
kooky
off your rocker
loony
gaga
whacky
nutso
nutsy
nutters

* Foolishness/ Silliness
whacky
daft

* Enthusiasm
fanatic

That was hard... I had to really think about the connotations of them all. I'm Australian and my native tongue is English.

[Rubina]

Thanks Hanna and Dom, you´re answers are very interesting

[Carma]

I hope you can still use my sorting. My mother tongue is Dutch.

* Mental illness
* demented

* Danger
* mad
* deranged
* insane
* berserk
* disturbed
* mental

* Oddness
* bonkers
* nuts
* nutso
* nutsy
* loony
* flipped
* balmy
* batty
* cracked
* unhinged

* Foolishness/ Silliness
* bananas
* daft
* off your rocker
* nutters
* gaga
* kooky
* dotty
* whacky

* Enthusiasm
* fanatic

I don't know if we were allowed to place some in two categories? cos if so, I'd probably end up with a different list. This was difficult, some words i didn't even know!

good luck!

[Rubina]

Thanks, your answers were interesting And yes, you can put them into multiple categories.