maudlin :'(

Have you ever had to deal with someone like this?
We’ve all been there, right? It’s Friday night, so your friend decided he or she was “really going to cut loose,” so they downed a fifth of something heinous, and now here they are, crying on your shoulder at 1:00 in the morning.

“I just *sniff* want you to know *sniff* that our friendship *hiccup* means… everything… to BAAAAAAAAAAAWWW!”

Maybe you’ve been that person. I hate that person. If you’ve been ever been that person, or have ever been within thirty yards of that person, then you know what I mean when I say maudlin.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines maudlin as:

[…]

2. Having reached the stage of drunkenness characterized by tearful sentimentality and effusive displays of affection; characteristic of (the behaviour of) someone who has reached this stage.*

3. Characterized by shallow sentimentality; mawkishly emotional; weakly sentimental.¹

[…]

What if I told you when you accuse someone of being maudlin, you’re actually comparing them to a Biblical saint?

Because the root of maudlin is actually Magdalene, as in Mary Magdelene. –Y’know, the star of The DaVinci Code.

Turns out that before she was a conspiracy theory, Mary Magdalene was mostly known for three things**:

1) weeping profusely and washing Jesus’ feet with her hair² [this is contested]³

2) weeping profusely when Jesus was crucified⁴

3) witnessing Christ’s resurrection …and weeping⁵

Maudlin is actually a British-accent corruption of the name Magdalene (French: Madelaine).⁶ It seems spelling just followed pronunciation, creating a strange, but necessary neologism. I mean, what else are you going to call Drunky McCrybaby? Annoying?

*It’s interesting to note that according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the “drunken” connotation of maudlin existed possibly before the simple sense of “weepy”.
**Mary Magdalene is actually never explicitly depicted weeping in the Bible. This was apparently simply inferred by Renaissance-era painters, who were using The Penance of the Prostitute² as a reference point.

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¹"maudlin." Oxford English Dictionary. 2007. Oxford University Press. 1 March 2009.
²Luke 7:37-38. The Holy Bible. New King James Version.
³"Mary Magdalene." Wikipedia. 2009. 1 March 2009. .
⁴Mark 15:40. The Holy Bible. New King James Version.
⁵Luke 24. The Holy Bible. New King James Version.
⁶ Freeman, Morton S. “Maudlin”. Page 163. A New Dictionary of Eponyms. Oxford University Press, 1997.
***Image of Mary Magdalene from The Crucifixion, by Ercole de Roberti.