Lindsay McMahon

common for someone for example to say I have kindle mania you would just be like I'm obsessed with my kindle I can't put it down right there are other ways would say it if the if the culture in general like everyone has a kindle all of a sudden then you might be like you know we have kindle mania it's bigger it seems like it's more about a group of people right yeah I

So I would say it's less about an individual and more about a group phenomenon.

You can use it playfully for an individual.

Absolutely.

But in general, to tack on mania at the end of something, you're saying that a lot of people are obsessed with it.

Yes.

And this is interesting because this is about the individual.

It's used very differently here when it's an obsession or a mental health condition that one person could have.

Which is the desire to start fires.

So a person that has this desire is a pyromaniac.

And of course, we use these very often to exaggerate.

I remember my little brother, we always called a pyromaniac because he just wanted to start the fire when we were camping.

And then he would want to play in it and poke and it would be like, you're such a pyromaniac.

He, of course, wasn't really a pyromaniac that had this obsession.

He just liked fire like a little like young boys often do or girls, young kids.

It's like, ooh, fire.

kleptomaniac you know but or you can joke about it if like someone takes a cookie from like your packages of cookie package of cookies without asking you'd be like you are such a kleptomaniac because you're accusing them of stealing it without acting asking yeah but just in a playful fun way right and sometimes people even just shorten it to klepto right that's right yeah which and pyro be like oh you're a pyro or you're a klepto and it's short for those

Yeah, maybe with very close friends where you're very confident that that's not a concern or not something that would offend them.

But yeah, that's true.

You wouldn't say it to just a coworker that you don't know well.