This week Tony Blair shared his thoughts on the forthcoming election. “Where political leaders are gathered, there is often a conversation about whose politics is crazier,” he said. “British politics is unfortunately ahead of the pack.” But is it an especially “crazy” time when, after all, no one is sexing up dossiers to promote an aggressive war?

Since “crazy” is associated with mental illness, this might be thought an unfortunately stigmatising remark; and to dismiss any phenomenon as simply mad is to foreclose any deeper analysis. In fact, “crazy” originally meant full of cracks or flaws, from the old French “acraser”, to destroy or smash to pieces – a sense that persists in “crazy paving”. British politics is certainly “crazy” in the sense that it is riven with odd divisions, but which country’s isn’t?

By the early 17th century “crazy” had acquired the metaphorical sense of a disordered mind, or, slightly later, great ardour or enthusiasm. (“Mr Murphy is crazy for your play,” Fanny Burney reports Hester Thrale telling her in 1779.) Or maybe Blair intended the 20th-century jazz age sense of “crazy”, meaning tremendously exciting, though the nation’s wearied citizens might strongly disagree.

• Steven Poole’s A Word for Every Day of the Year is published by Quercus.