Funky Phrases
SEELEY LAKE – The word "hairbrained" conjures images of Lucy from the "I Love Lucy" show engaging in hilarious and unsuccessful attempts to get into show business or to make money as in the famous chocolate factory episode. No doubt Lucy's mop of red hair helped to perpetuate the spelling of "hairbrained." Though both spellings are in common usage, the more correct spelling is "harebrained" because the original reference is not to hair but to the species of rabbit known as the European or brown hare.
The European hare is larger, has a longer body and longer ears and is more muscular than its cottontail cousin. It does not make as good a pet as its cousin, being skittish and easily spooked, even in captivity. Hares are a familiar sight in open fields across the United Kingdom. Their behavior during mating season, which usually reaches its peak in March, earns them the appellation "mad" as in crazy and in turn gives us the adjective "harebrained."
According to ypte.org.uk: "Spring is the main mating season and this is when 'mad March hares' may be seen, sometimes a whole field of them, dashing about in a demented fashion, leaping in the air, chasing and 'boxing' with each other."
The guardian.com explains in more detail: "The females are disturbed from their browsing by the advances of the males; they skip away to avoid attention, and are chased; they turn, twist, double, sprint, leap. Sometimes it is the male coursing the female; at others, losing her temper, the pursued turns and, rising on her long hind legs, smartly boxes the ears of the too persistent swain, who flies to avoid the blows."
Females, or jills, have also been seen leading multiple suitors on a long-distance chase. Hares can reach speeds of 45 miles per hour. Apparently, the jill's intention is to permit exhaustion to weed out the less hardy. In the end, jill mates with the fittest jack, presumably the one with the best genes, or at least the best endurance genes.
YouTube has a number of videos of hare behavior, including boxing matches. Search "hare boxing youtube."
References to hares' mating behavior can be traced as far back as 1500. The poem "Blowbol's Test" has the line: Thanne they begyn to swere and to stare, And be as braynles as a Marshe hare [Then they began to swerve and to stare, And be as brainless as a March hare].
Of course, the most popular reference comes from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" where Carroll created a specific character named the March Hare. He is first mentioned in chapter six.
After the Cheshire cat gives Alice directions to both the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, Alice "walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live. 'I've seen hatters before,' she said to herself, 'the March Hare will be much more interesting, and perhaps as this is May, it won't be raving mad – at least not so mad as it was in March.'"
When Alice meets the March Hare, he does indeed indulge in harebrained behavior, talking nonsense and dunking a watch in his cup of tea.
Lewis Carrol's character combined with the energetic mating behavior of real hares continues to keep the adjective harebrained in common use, no matter how it is spelled.
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