by Chris Harris
Some expressions need explaining. Others paint such a wonderfully ridiculous picture that their meaning is obvious before you have even thought about it. “Mad as a box of frogs” belongs firmly in the latter camp: chaotic, eccentric, unpredictable and gloriously British. Yet for a phrase that sounds as though it has been knocking around village pubs for centuries, it is surprisingly modern.
There are plenty of ways of saying somebody is behaving irrationally. They can be bonkers, barmy, round the bend or off their rocker. But few create quite such an immediate picture as “mad as a box of frogs.” You don’t really need the expression explained. Imagine half a dozen frogs confined in a cardboard box: one jumping left, another right, one sitting perfectly still and another suddenly launching itself into the air. There is movement, unpredictability and absolutely no obvious organisation. Imagine those frogs then jumping around in someone’s head and you get the gist. I wonder if they are smiling with happiness or are grimly trying to get out!
Of course, someone who is mad as a box of frogs isn’t necessarily just mad; they are eccentric, unpredictable, chaotic or behaving in a way that makes very little sense. In the eyes and opinion of someone else, whom maybe the ones who are mad themselves!
The expression sounds wonderfully comforting, old and rural, as though people have been saying it in English villages for centuries. Surprisingly, there is little evidence that they have. The familiar phrase appears to be a relatively modern British expression. References to “a box of frogs” begin appearing in British sources during the latter twentieth century, initially as a description of energetic or chaotic movement. There is sadly not some idyllic vintage yarn for the evolution of the phrase that seemed to evolve in the 80s and 90s
However, it does belong to a much older English tradition. “Mad as a March hare” dates back centuries, while mad as a hatter, mad as a hornet, mad as a wet hen and mad as a brush all demonstrate our fondness for making madness more interesting by comparing it with something else.
The formula is beautifully simple: mad as a… followed by something sufficiently memorable. Eventually somebody appears to have supplied the frogs. The box is probably as important as the frogs. A frog beside a pond isn’t particularly amusing. Several frogs confined together are. The box creates the chaos: all that unpredictable energy contained in far too small a space.
The expression is principally associated with British English, although it is also understood and used in Ireland, Australia and elsewhere in the English-speaking world. It is less naturally American, partly because Americans commonly use mad to mean angry, whereas in Britain mad has long been used informally to mean crazy, eccentric or irrational.
It has become familiar through conversation, newspapers, television and comedy because it is excellent shorthand. A writer doesn’t need a paragraph establishing that a character is wildly eccentric. Someone merely has to announce that “he’s mad as a box of frogs.”
The expression has appeared in British television scripts and popular culture, while former members of The Yardbirds even formed a band called Box of Frogs in the 1980s. The words work because they are short, visual and faintly anarchic.
Its social meaning has changed slightly, however. Modern attitudes towards mental health make describing someone with genuine mental illness as mad potentially insensitive. But idioms often become detached from their literal meanings, and mad as a box of frogs now usually suggests comic eccentricity rather than making any serious judgement about somebody’s mental health. A phrase that has survived our supermarket dash to knock the beauty, life and expressions from our wonderful language, to sacrifice at the altar of political expediency.
Part of the phrase’s survival comes from its flexibility. People can be mad as a box of frogs, but so can ideas, meetings, television programmes, parties and entire situations. The meaning has broadened into anything sufficiently chaotic, eccentric or unpredictable. Safeguarded by a wide scope of meaning and interpretation.
Perhaps its most interesting feature is how quickly it has acquired the appearance of antiquity. Mad as a March hare has been around for centuries; mad as a box of frogs appears to be comparatively recent. Yet the two now sound as though they naturally belong together. Okay, they don’t in the context of reading this, so they used to!
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Something About England: Amazon.co.uk: Harris, Mr Christopher, Turner, Louise: 9798181129351: Books
Welcome to Denham, a fictitious Sussex village where behind respectable doors, well-tended gardens and familiar faces, things have a habit of going badly wrong.
Obsession, ambition, deception, jealousy and petty rivalry run through this collection of tragi-comical and satirical short stories. From poltergeists and lottery winners to cricket club feuds and environmental disasters, ordinary people embark on discovering just how quickly an ordinary life can unravel into an extraordinary mess.
Darkly funny, occasionally poignant and populated by characters who are rarely quite what they seem, these stories explore the peculiarities of Middle England, and the uncomfortable territory between respectability and ruin.
