Ravings are the wild, messy things someone says when they are not thinking clearly — in a fever, in a rage, or when their mind has come loose. The word is almost always plural. When you call someone’s words ravings, you are not only saying they are wrong; you are saying it is crazy talk, not worth treating as sense. Papers use it to brush off an angry speech or a conspiracy story: the ravings of a madman. Though actually, that is a hard shove. You are putting the speaker outside the circle of people we listen to. It comes from rave, to talk wildly. Today’s rave (a dance party) grew later from the same idea of going wild, but ravings still means the talking kind, not the party.

胡言亂語、瘋話