"I think I'm cracking up"

'Balderdash & Piffle' may have finished on Monday, but I've still got an appetite for all things linguistic and etymylogical - not least because of my current reading material, Mark Abley's 'Spoken Here', which has been excellent thus far.

One of my Christmas stocking fillers was a tear-off desk diary, each day giving the origins of a different word or expression. It's very American, with all that that implies - ie who gives a shit about where and how trademark names like Pringles and Alpo (?) originated? - but every now and again there's a real gem.

Take today's, for instance:

"BASKET CASE: Someone who is out of control mentally or unable to perform may now be called a 'basket case', but the term originally applied to someone who was physically unable to move. The term arose as a consequence of injuries suffered by British soldiers in World War I; in those years, a 'basket case' referred to a quadruple amputee, someone carried in a basket".

Well, you learn something every day, don't you?