Bedlam


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Bedlam is a scene, situation, or state of great confusion, uproar, madness, chaos, noisiness, etc.

In a state of bedlam, there is no sense of order and everything is chaotic and out of control.

“There was bedlam in the streets as people reacted to the latest injustice.”

“After the fire alarm went off he was lucky to make his way through the bedlam of shoving and screaming people to find the emergency exit.”

Now, let’s compare the confusing phrases, ‘It was bedlam’ vs. ‘there was bedlam.’

Many times, the word bedlam is used to describe a past situation or scene. People often say ‘it was bedlam’ or ‘there
was bedlam.’

In colloquial English ‘it was bedlam’ sounds perfectly natural and understandable. This is probably the phrase most often used.

“I should never have gone shopping on Christmas Eve. It was bedlam out there.”

In everyday conversation, this is fine and sounds quite natural.

However, it is technically incorrect.

Remember, bedlam is a noun. To be quite specific it is an uncountable or noncount noun. If you say ‘it was bedlam’ you are making bedlam an adjective. Referring to the situation or scene as it:

The scene was bedlam.

This is incorrect if bedlam is a noun. An easy way to understand this is to answer the question ‘was there food?’

Can you say ‘yes, it was food?’

NO!

You say, ‘there was food.’

Was there bedlam at the football game?

Yes, there was bedlam.

Historical Origin of the Word Bedlam

The word bedlam came about as a contraction of the name of a hospital in London.

The hospital started out in 1247 as a priory for the order of St. Mary of Bethlehem. This priory eventually became the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem and was meant to serve sick poor and homeless people.

However, by 1405, the hospital was under royal control and had begun to be partly used as an insane asylum, the first of its kind in England. The name of the hospital had already been slurred to Bedlam in popular speech, helped along by the variant spelling Bethlem and soon an inmate of the asylum started also started to be called a bedlam as well.

Bedlam was not always the most well-run or inspected of establishments. There were periods of great brutality and deplorable conditions. In his 1657 diary, John Evelyns describes “miserable creatures in chains.”

The hospital became known as a place of noisy, raving lunatics and wealthy people even took to visiting it to be entertained by their antics. It is estimated that around 100,000 people a year visited the institution for this purpose and the hospital was a model for the kind of excesses and cruelty that the “madhouse” came to be associated with.

After this, an insane asylum or ‘madhouse’came to be called bedlam and the meaning of the word then became extended to mean any riotous noise or scene of noisy confusion.

However, after 1857, St. Mary of Bethlehem came under regular government inspection and today it is known as the Bethlem Royal Hospital, although not located in the same place.

Despite its checkered past, it is now a modern psychiatric research institution.

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