Author: Laurel Stvan
Laurel Stvan, University of Texas Arlington If you haven’t heard by now, the American press recently picked up on an interesting linguistic phenomenon in Norway, where the word “Texas” is slang for “crazy.” Indeed, it turns out that for several years Norwegians have used the word to describe a situation that is chaotic, out of control or excitingly unpredictable (The crowd at the concert last night was totally Texas!). While this may seem like a bit of a stretch to many American English speakers, when examined through the lens of linguistics it’s actually a pretty natural extension of the word…