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"Crank" is a pejorative term used for a person who holds an unshakable belief that most of his or her contemporaries consider to be false.〔(Crank ) at Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary〕 A crank belief is so wildly at variance with those commonly held as to be ludicrous. Cranks characteristically dismiss all evidence or arguments which contradict their own unconventional beliefs, making rational debate a futile task, and rendering them impervious to facts, evidence, and rational inference. Common synonyms for "crank" include crackpot and kook. A crank differs from a fanatic in that the subject of the fanatic's obsession is either not necessarily widely regarded as wrong or not necessarily a "fringe" belief. Similarly, the word ''quack'' is reserved for someone who promotes a medical remedy or practice that is widely considered to be ineffective; this term, however, does not imply any deep belief in the idea or product they are attempting to sell. ''Crank'' may also refer to an ill-tempered individual or one who is in a bad mood, but that usage is not the subject of this article. Although a crank's beliefs are ridiculous to experts in the field, cranks are sometimes very successful in convincing non-experts of their views. A famous example is the Indiana Pi Bill where a state legislature nearly wrote into law a crank result in geometry. ==Etymology== Old English ''cranc-'' is preserved in modern English crankshaft, and obsolete ''crancstæf'' "a weaver's instrument". It is from a Proto-Germanic stem '' *krank-'' meaning "bend". German ''krank'' has a modern meaning of "sick, ill",〔Compare to the German noun, ''Krankenhaus'', i.e., "hospital."〕 evolved from a former meaning "weak, small". English ''crank'' in its modern sense is first recorded 1833, and ''cranky'' in a sense of "irritable" dates from 1821. The term was popularised in 1872 for being applied to Horace Greeley who was ridiculed during his campaign for the U.S. presidency. In 1882, the term was used to describe Charles Guiteau who shot U.S. president James Garfield. In 1906, ''Nature'' offered essentially the same definition which is used here: The term ''crank'' (or ''krank'') was once the favored term for spectators at sporting events, a term later supplanted by ''fans''. By implication, the "kranks in the bleaching boards" think they know more about the sport than do its participants. There is more discussion of this term in ''The Dickson Baseball Dictionary'', by Paul Dickson. The word ''crackpot'' apparently also first appeared in 1883: As noted in ''Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary'', the terms ''crackpot'', ''crackbrain'', and ''cracked'' are synonymous, and suggest a metaphorically "broken" head. The terms ''crazy'' and ''crazed'' also originally meant "broken" and derive from the same root word as ''cracked''. The dictionary gives no indication that ''pate'' and ''pot'' have the same root, despite their apparent similarity, and implied colloquial use of ''pot'' to mean "head" in the word ''crackpot''. However, the term ''craze'' is also used to refer to minute cracks in pottery glaze, again suggesting the metaphorical connection of cracked pots with questionable mental health. The term ''kook'' appears to be much more recent. The adjectival-form, ''kooky'', was apparently coined as part of American teen-ager (or beatnik) slang, which (derives from ) the pejorative meaning of the noun cuckoo. In late 1958, Edd Byrnes first played a hair-combing parking lot attendant called "Kookie" on 77 Sunset Strip. The noun-form ''kook'', may have first appeared in 1960 in Britain's ''Daily Mail'' newspaper: 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Crank (person)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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